It rained all day in Tokyo, which put a little wrench in my plans.

I still went to the temple site, but unfortunately not many people came by to observe due to the rain. At one point, I actually stood by the statues alone for half an hour without a single person passing. My feet were wet. My head was wet. I was shivering. So I left.

I met up with Hannah around 1:00, and we went to a DELICIOUS lunch (the last photo in the food post). Fried dumplings, soup, rice. PERFECTION on a rainy day.

Then we walked to the largest book store in Shinjuku. It was 8 floors of books with one floor of all foreign books. I really enjoyed the large section of books on Japan. For some reason, Americans love to write about their experiences in Japan. I guess I get that. Hence the blog. 

My first souvenir for myself: a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in Japanese. I have a copy of it in Chinese from Taiwan. I guess that is my thing. Some people buy stickers or flags or coffee mugs from every country they visit. I buy Lord of the Rings.  

So, Shinjuku is the business district of Tokyo during the day. Yesterday, I woke up early to head to Hasedera Temple and walked to Shinjuku station. That’s when I realized how much of a business district I was in. The amount of people in black suits was alarming. It was like I was in some weird science fiction movie where the streets were covered with robots who all dressed the same. Black suits and a black briefcase. On my fifteen minute walk, I think I only saw two other people not dressed in this really formal wear. Full suits! Black pants or skirts, black shoes, a white or light colored dress shirt, and a black suit jacket over it. I think it was the uniform attire paired with the MASS amount of people that compelled me to even share this with you. I had to stop at a cross walk close to the station, and on the other side I swear there were about three hundred people already waiting for the light to change. I wish I had my camera out. It was quite a sight.