We had a 7am departure which was softened by us being woken with breakfast in bed. This was for a short shoot of cherry blossoms around the Imperial gardens where we got some interesting water reflections of buildings as well.
We carried on to the Yasakuni shrine and the Chidorigafuchi moat. It was fun to see earlybirders out with their dogs and to people watch. The cherry blossom was lovely and it was great to enjoy it at a peaceful time of morning.
We got back to the hotel by 830 and got four hours off. We needed to prepare a collection of photos for our presentations so it was nice to have a solid block of time to go through things. My collection was called " lost in thought" whereas Johnny came up with "masks".
At about noon some went out to a crazy part of town notorious for it's street signs and bizarre looking people. I decided on peace and quiet and had a lovely club sandwich working on my blog.
At 2.30 we all met up and critiqued each other's work. We finished up at 445 with half an hour to get changed before going out for our dinner reservations at Happoen Kochuan with a live Koto performance. Before we went in to eat we walked around some surrounding gardens which had a pond full of koi. These gardens are used as a wedding venue so we came across a bride and an area decorated with balloons which looked pretty amongst the blossom. There were several lovely old cars ( Rolls Royces) in the car park and people were very elegantly dressed.
Dinner was Japanese with many courses accompanied by the playing of an instrument that looks like a small horizontal harp, the koto,with thirteen strings.
The performer sang several Japanese songs, followed by a rendition of " oh when the saints come marching in".
The performer sang several Japanese songs, followed by a rendition of " oh when the saints come marching in".
We are getting a lovely array of musical and cultural experiences here. One of the idiosyncrasies we picked up on is that in Japan any bodily noise is rude so there is no "bless you" when you sneeze as you don't bless a fart either. We did learn in the tea ceremony a few days back, that the exception to this rule is that quiet slurping is considered a compliment on your hostess' delicious tea so we were encouraged to slurp.
The bathroom is called the happy room and it does make one happy to sit on a warm toilet seat with a choice of music and water sprays!
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