Today our first stop was the nearby Nezu Museum – ezu-muse.or.jp/en/sp/.  A brand new exhibit started today – “Introduction to Traditional Art: The Subjects of Paintings.”

It’s the fourth year they’ve done a version of this.  Lots of beautiful paintings and scrolls, but no photos were allowed.  The museum sits within a very large garden first created in 1906 and restored after WWII.  See the photos below.  The tea house had a waiting line so we headed out to the Oriental Bazaar in the Shibuya neighborhood to find souvenirs.  Nothing suited us, so we went across the street for sushi.

Then we headed back to the room to watch the sumo matches on NHK.  This was the next to the last day, but the winner (best won/lost record) was actually named today. It was Asanoyama, a young wrestler not anywhere near the top of his division.  That’s his photo below.  During that hour they also showed Trump’s plane landing in Tokyo.  He plans to give a prize – the President’s Cup (it might be called the “Trump Cup”) – to the winner of the sumo tournament tomorrow afternoon.  ;-p  Trump will meet with Abe Shinzo, the Prime Minister, and greet the new Emperor Naruhito whose reign began the new Reiwa era.  His father, Emperor Akihito abdicated April 30, ending the Heisei era.  Because our hotel sits across the street from the prime minister’s office and home, the streets around the hotel have been blocked off all day.  But we haven’t seen anything of Trump, thank goodness.  Dinner was in the hotel and blog writing finished up our day.  We fly home tomorrow.

Some of our favorite things this trip:

• Playing the drums on Sado Island.
• Mori Team Lab Digital Art Lab experience.
• The lectures on board ship. We learned a lot about Japan’s relationships with the world.
• Tom trying strange Japanese foods.
• The incredible weather (sunshine May 4 through May 26 except for one day).
• Friendly people everywhere.
• The trees!  Especially within the heart of Tokyo.  Every street in downtown Tokyo is lined with trees, and if there are a few square feet of space beside a building, you’ll find a tree, hedge, shrub or vine growing there.
• The cleanliness of the city – you won’t find a piece of trash anywhere!
• The Capitol Hotel Tokyu in Tokyo was pretty neat as well.
• And Hiroshima reminded us that the pursuit of peace must never end!

Tom and Cheryl

Here are a few photos of the day: