Travel: Japan – Tokyo (Day 2)

How do we begin to describe this day? Well, given that it is the Lord‘s day we went to church. Saint Albans Episcopal Anglican Church in Tokyo. It was about a 30 minute train ride and I made all my connections. Arrived early and was able to pray my rosary before the service began. A very small church in size but it seemed to be a vibrant congregation. I would say that half the members were African.

The service was straight out of the Book of Common Prayer. Very few deviations. I like that in a service. The sermon was good however following the sermon (the priest was a graduate of Nashotah House) the former priest to the church (also a graduate of Nashotah House) gave a small presentation on a gift that he had received and that he was now giving to the diocese. The gift was a FUMIE.

A fumi-e (踏み絵, fumi “stepping-on” + e “picture”) was a likeness of Jesus or Mary to which the religious authorities of Japan required suspected Christians to step, in order to demonstrate that they were not members of the outlawed Christian religion. If they refused, they were put to death and a most horrible way.

The priest who gifted the fumie to the diocese provided us with a detailed description of how they were put to death. I’m not going to go into that here. They were the Martyrs of Japan. It’s worth reading up on.

During the announcements, they invited the visitors to tell who they were and where they were from. Yours truly spoke up and gave a loud shout out for Enid, Oklahoma! Funny thing, that was not my only connection with Oklahoma for the day.

Following the service, the day turned into a bit of a tourist outing. As I turned the corner on the street that leads up to the church I saw the Tokyo Tower.

I said to myself, “Self, you’ve got to get up there!” Both self and I were of the opinion that we would not be climbing the stairs, but we took the elevator. What a ride. It goes up and up and up.

Standing 1,092 feet high in central Tokyo, Tokyo Tower (東京タワー) is the world’s tallest, self-supported steel tower and 10 feet taller than its model, the Eiffel Tower. A symbol of Japan’s post-war rebirth as a major economic power, Tokyo Tower was the country’s tallest structure from its completion in 1958 until 2012 when it was surpassed by the Tokyo Skytree. In addition to being a popular tourist spot, Tokyo Tower serves as a broadcast antenna.

820 feet up is the top observation deck. Yours truly wrote the elevator all the way there. I can honestly say I felt a bit woozy at times, but what a view.



What goes up must come down…

To get my feedback on the ground, I traveled to the Imperial Gardens. Most everything has bloomed except for the azaleas. The variations of green were fantastic though.

At this point, I had been on the go for about eight hours and I had not eaten since breakfast. I was hungry. I took two trains to get back to the general area of my hotel, and then found a sushi bar. I ate my weight in sushi. I also had four very tasty beers. I had the salmon, shrimp, eel, salmon roe, tuna, mackerel, shrimp… and when all that was done, I looked at the guy and said, “I’ve never had sea urchin before. I think I need to try that.” I did. Salty and earthy. I would eat it again, but it’s not on the top of the list. I topped all that off with a salmon skin roll garnished with salmon roe. Dang! Good eats for sure!

Now, when I ordered the sea urchin, I noticed the two girls at the end of this bar about three seats away from me. They were very friendly and we chatted a bit. But they watched me eat that sea urchin, and then we discussed it. Come to find out, they were from Stillwater, Oklahoma. They both work at OSU. We had a really good laugh about that. They have one more day here and then they’re on their way home. How strange is that? There are over 14 million people living in Tokyo and I happen to run into two people from Oklahoma. A very good day.

Tomorrow, I have absolutely no idea what’s on the agenda, but I do believe that I’m going to go and visit some more of the churches that are here. I don’t know what the architectural style is but I have not seen it before. More on that tomorrow.

I pray you all are well. My cat sitter extraordinaire sent a picture of The Queen. She seems to be doing well.

Silly photos…