Mum and dad's trip - Friday

On friday morning we decided to head out to Odaiba on the monorail. Odaiba is a rather strange area, consisting of reclaimed land that is still rather undeveloped in some areas, and over developed in others, with offices, apartments and shopping centres. It also has a beach, and a small version of the Statue of Liberty! The nice thing is that the monorail snakes up, around and over the Rainbow Bridge and allows for stunning views of Tokyo Bay. We were lucky to have wonderful sunny weather and it was nice to be out in the open with views over Tokyo.

We had a quick stop at the crazy Venus Fort - a shopping arcade that looks like an aircraft hangar from the outside and a Venetian town from the inside, complete with painted cloudy skies on the ceiling. I needed to stock up on pet items, so we also headed for Pet City (pronounced 'Peto Shitty' here) where I purchased bulk loads of litter and food, all effortlessly delivered to my door the next day. We wondered at all the items available for your pet, including the array clothing choices......

We then headed on to Kudanshita to the Yasukuni-jinja shrine where there was a free, open air sumo wrestling event going on. It was held in the grounds of the shrine and quite stunning. The event was really crowded, but we managed to find a spot to stand at the back and had a great view of the matches and the build up to each one, with the thigh-slapping and rice throwing. There was an amazing atmosphere.

After the wrestling, we headed to the Imperial Palace to view the cherry blossom - a rather famous place to do it and always packed with blossom viewers. Despite the heaving masses, it really was stunning and lovely to see people rowing on the moat and settling down for blossom picnics wherever they could find a space.

That evening we had friends round for dinner and then we all trotted down to the Meguro river near where we live. The blossom trees run the length of the river and were at their juicy best. There were parties going on everywhere you looked, as well as food vendors and drink vendors touting their wares.