Saturday in Tokyo

On Saturday, we met with our Tokyo contacts: Ozawa (our fixer) as well as Kenichi (Program Director at the Wellness Community) and Nanako (Kenichi’s wife). We started our day with a meeting at the hotel to talk through our time in Japan. Then, they took us out for a sushi lunch followed by a tour of Tokyo. The sushi was amazing! Apparently, I use too much soy sauce. Kenichi, Nanako and our sushi chef found it quite amusing. “You just need a little,” they said.

From there, we took the subway to Asakusa. It’s an area of Tokyo most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. It was very cool. The site of the temple has been there for over 1000 years (though there has been some rebuilding since WWII). It was founded in 628, one of Tokyo’s oldest and most significant temples. Asakusa is also a huge open air market. There were tons of people walking around. We did the same – got some great b-roll and sampled some Japanese sweets. They were pretty good – two little pancakes with sweet red bean paste in the middle. Sadly, I dropped mine after the first bite. 

After Asakusa, we took a boat tour of Tokyo in this crazy space-age looking vessel. We later learned that it was designed by an artist/animator who created a cartoon about three space travelers. The boat looked like it would submerge any minute. It also had a pretty goo replica of the Saturday Night Fever dance floor – complete with changing lights. Here are some photos from our first official day in the city. 

Sensō-ji Temple in Asakusa

Space Boat

Wilson Enters The Unknown

Anne & The Space Travelers