Tokyo day 3

Ryan has a real interest in Japanese history and culture and had discovered a sword museum to visit. We all went by subway and, whilst Jess and Ryan went in, Martin, Kath and I had a coffee then wandered down some side streets. But it wasn't for long as the museum turned out to be very small. We then walked through a park to the Meiji shrine where I performed the water ceremony.

These straw barrels are full of Sake donated to the shrine by local breweries.

Whilst there we were lucky enough to see 2 wedding parties. The majority of female guests were in traditional dress. One couple had a London taxi as their wedding car!

After lunch we walked to the Harajuku area which is a bit like Carnaby Street or Camden market. We didn't see many people dressed up as cartoon characters - possibly they come out at weekends, but there were quite a few youngsters dressed to stand out from the crowd and lots of wacky shops.

More walking took us to the famous Shibuya crossing. When the lights go red they go red at the same time in all directions resulting in a mass of people crossing - known as the 'scramble'. We went up to the 2nd floor to watch then went down and crossed!

Heading towards a robotics centre we looked at another shrine.

Unfortunately the exhibition floor in the robotics centre was closed as they were changing the displays but we had a bit of fun in the interactive area. Jess and Martin played football and I played with the white robots. They danced but also could balance with something on the tray - in the photo I have put my purse full of coins on it's tray. The red one in the background was constantly self adjusting so it could stay upright.