Japan - 2016

My chariot to Japan awaits. While it was a cool plane, and has some nice features to make a 12 hour flight a little more comfortable...12 hours is too long to be stuck inside a tube flying seven miles above the Earth
Gate to the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. Emporer Meiji was a fairly important fellow who oversaw the tranformation of Japan into a modern nation at the dawn of the 20th century.
Cool light outside the shrine
Many shrines in Japan have these stations for you to wash your hands and mouth to "purify" yourself before going to the shrine.
A bunch of cool and colorful sake barrels stacked
Neat building in a park in Shinjuku
Painting on the wall of the giant sumo stadium in Ryogoku, a neighborhood in Tokyo. Sadly, there were no sumo wrestlers there that day.
A model of an old Edo (old word for Tokyo) village. I love the models that the Japanese make - these can be found in many museums in the country - extremely detailed!
Actual suit of samauri armor.
Legit samurai sword
Statue of Date Masamune in Sendai ( a few hours north of Tokyo). This statue is perched high above the town on the grounds of the former Sendai Castle. Date was a regional leader and famous warrior in Sendai back in the 1600's
Overview of the city of Sendai from the Sendai Castle
Every city in Japan seems to have one of these covered shopping marketplace things that goes on for several city blocks.
A shrine in Yamadera. This is at the base of the "Thousand Steps" that lead up Mouth Hojusan to the Risshakuji Temple (and some great views!)
The end of the thousand steps is near!
Great view of the small mountain town - you can see the train station to the right hand side. This is probably a really cool place to be in winter!
This is what first class looks like in a bullet train. They are called "Green Cars". Not bad at all!
Steel tori outside of the War Memorial in Tokyo, Yasukuni. This is a controversial site as it honors all war dead, even the war criminals.
The place to worship those who had died for Japan in battle
A "Zero" Japanese flighter
A Japanese bomber. Above, you can see a rocket plane that would have been flown by a kamakazi pilot as the Japenese became even more desperate toward teh end of the war.
An illustration of the "Right Hand Rule". I teach this rule in my Physics classes. Based on test scores, students might understand this illustration more than they understand my explanation!
I stumbled across a random festival happening in the middle of Shinjuku (a neighborhood in Tokyo). A shame I had left my good camera at home to go out to get a quick bite to eat!
The National Museum of Nature and Science. This was an awesome museum with some great exhibits (and some good demonstrations that I plan to use in class). I'm a sucker for a good science museum!
The tiger was the coolest animal of the buch of course! They had LOADS of stuffed animals of all types! Or at least, I think they were stuffed, maybe they were just the animal champions of standing still.
A model of "Le Grand K" - the standard of a kilogram (the SI unit of mass - that's right, the kg is the SI unit, not the gram...Chemistry people...)
A great periodic table featuring as many of the actual elements as they could provide. Notice the "Ts" label for element 117 - Tennessine!
The middle of Ueno Park - an amazing park that is flooded with tourists in April when the Cherry Blossoms bloom.
Seems safe. After I took this picture he added another cylinder on top of the one already there, just in the other axis. CRAZY!
A view of the Tokyo Tower from a boat!
Traditional Japanese sculpture.
Enormous Gundam statue outside of a mall. Why? Because Japan.
Japanese Boy Band. I had to stealthfully take this picture due to them holding up "No Picture" signs for some reason. I've always been a rebel!
Slightly unsettling giant Pikachu/bouncy house found in an entertainment district in Tokyo Bay, Odaiba.
This is the inside of a shopping mall in Tokyo...of course...
At Odaiba I found a Toyota complex where some Toyota racing drivers were talking to this kid - I find myself having a difficult time describing the whole Odaiba experiance...because...Japan.
I want this car! What an amazing paint job!
The Statue of Liberty in front of the Rainbow Bridge. Beautfiul waterfront scene in Tokyo
Taking a river cruise to the SkyTree - the second largest structure in the world - an yes, I did go to the top (the second bit that's sticking out - 450m above the ground!)
A view from the bottom of the SkyTree. It's tough to put its size into perspective...it was big.