Asia Mega Tour II - Pictures from Sunday #1

There were so many pictures with us doing the photography workshop that I decided to split them into two posts.

Our day started off as we walked to the train station we saw this incredibly long line stretching blocks

We spent ten minutes wandering around following where this line was leading to and what was so hot as to induce folks to go to this length.

We finally reached the end and there was a few people giving out tokens. No store front, announcement, sign or anything.

We still don't know what they were cuing for

Then we took a train to Harajuku to go see the Meiji Shrine where we encountered our a few locals

They were headed to the famous (evidently) Takeshita Street

Which was also very nicely bucolic on a lazy Sunday

Then off to the Meiji Shrine - dedicated to the Emperor

It was different from other shrines and temples we've seen in that it was built and decorated out of raw wood

Various gates along the way

Each year sake makers present a large quantity in honor of the Emperor

But somewhere along the way they decided that as a modern progressive county they should offer French Burgundy as well...I could like being the Emperor with a perk like this

 Naturally when we got to the shrine itself

Most of it was 

Under construction

Here are sections that were not under construction

The shrine had a garden that beckoned to us

With a reconstructed Emperor's tea house (most of old Tokyo/Edo was burned down by air raids during WWII)

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Lotus plants

A historic spring that never runs dry and has exceedingly pure water

(which you are not allowed to drink)

And there was an azalea grove that featured unpruned plants

I'd never seen an azalea allowed to grown on its own

Here I captured a rare sequence of a photographic hunter

She spots her prey and makes sure the coast is clear

She goes in for the shot

Other non-stalked azalea