Yasukuni Shrine

FYI, I am going back to my roots in this one y'all.

Yesterday after my lesson I went to Yasukuni shrine, which is the most famous place to see cherry blossoms and the shrine is pretty important as well. The weather was overcast, but I was determined to go especially since both my Japanese teacher and my new email friend(who also takes lessons from my teacher and is from Dallas) told me about it. I got to the station about 1pm and then had to walk down the street to get to the shrine, but it was worth it because the streets were lined with cherry blossoms. Here are some from far and up close



I get to the shrine and it is beautiful as there are cherry blossoms everywhere. They also had a bunch of chairs lined up in front of a stage. My Japanese teacher told me she was there the night before to pray and its a big deal. Anywho, I took some more shots of the cherry blossoms,

paid my respects at the shrine,

and then walked around to find this serene place.



An area like this isn't complete unless they have huge fish, who were trying to eat the fallen sakura petals

And since it was so beautiful, I asked a Japanese man, in Japanese if he would take my picture and he did. I made a friend in him and chatted with him for about 5 minutes. It was good!


After I left this area, I took some more pictures of cherry blossoms and the stage where they were praying



I decided to walk out the main entrance to see what else was going on and I am so happy I did. I walked across the streets to find many food and drink stands set up with tables and chairs under cherry blossoms for people to enjoy. They had the usual Japanese cuisines available: yakitori(skewered meat), octopus balls (yuck), whole fish skewers,

noodles, soups, chocolate covered bananas with sprinkles,

and then I saw it and I was sooooo excited, the "elote" stand.

I had to get one and for a minute I was taken back to being at home and going to church bazaars where they had it. I got my elote and a beer and I sat down to enjoy it....hmmmmm Now it was good, but I could have definitely used some powdered chile, but I'll take what I can get!


After that I took some more pictures of sakura and then came home. It was a great day!