Day 7

This was a super busy day with lots and lots of walking. We started off at the East Garden of the Imperial Palace and walked through the grounds. It was very nice, and we spent a good deal of time walking around. Then we walked over to the National Diet Building. After seeing that, we broke down and took the girls to McDonalds. Can't go anywhere without eating at at McDonald's I guess. What was really funny though was the fact that they had origami paper as part of the happy set, as they call them. While we were there too, some nice people at one of the tables near us made a little origami hat for each of the girls. It was so sweet. The Japanese were so nice, and the girls were like little celebrities over there.

After McDonalds we took the train to Asakusa to the Buddhist Senso-Ji Temple. Leading up to the Temple are several little shops that sell everything. We find some neat paper stores and found some stationary and origami paper. The Temple was very neat as well, and very crowded.

We then headed to Ueno Park and saw the peonies there. It is amazing how much care they devote to their plants. The peonies all were screened by bamboo screens or had little paper umbrellas over them to shield them from the harsh light and they were absolutely gorgeous.

Also at Ueno Park they have several kid rides so the girls enjoyed riding on some of them as a special treat. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Oto Oto that had some very delicious traditional Japanese food. It was all so good, but I don't think anyone tried the tempura fish that still had the head and tail intact. The dessert was especially interesting. It was ice cream, strawberries, gooseberries, jello-like cubes, some other fruit and then you poured molasses over all of that and then ate it with a sweet red bean paste. They even let the girls pick little prizes after our dinner which was way exciting for them. Eden picked a tambourine and Olive picked a princess crown.

I think this day wore all of us out.