Dirt Therapy

The Grand Prince Hotel Takanawa was our arrival hotel in Tokyo. Everyone was arriving at different times, some two days before, others one day before the official start of the tour. I was two days early so I spent two nights here before everyone left for Kyoto. Not much fanfare was given about the hotel garden in our itinerary, except to note that "there is a garden adjacent to the hotel". And what a lovely garden it was! Very well-tended (it was rare to see a garden there that was not), it was larger than expected. It was quite spectacular at night when it was lit up - a great introductory garden for our tour. There was a massive arrangement in the hotel lobby. On the second day, an employee was trimming back some of the limbs. Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy

We visited numerous temples on the tour, at least five major ones and countless smaller ones that we stumbled upon on independent walks around our hotels. The one pictured above, Senso-ji was the last one we saw, and it is significant because it is the oldest one in Japan (originally built around 650AD). An avenue of tourist shops lines the way to the temple and it was packed with people. I was on a mission to find Michael a Kokeshi doll and I was running out of time. Our tour guide assured me that I could find one on this street. I did locate them, in a tiny shop about the size of our bathroom (which is very small). It was packed with a group of teenagers and there was barely room to breathe. Fortunately, a lady working in the shop retreived the doll from the top shelf and even wrapped it for me. I told Michael later that I now understood his panic attacks. My shopping excursion caused me to miss going inside the temple, but I was happy that I got the doll. Notice a lot of people are ...

Tokyo at night was one of my favorite experiences. Sleek, cutting edge architecture and magical lights, it was like being in a Christmas-decorated town.  I'm sure this was the largest city I've ever been in and I was overwhelmed by it all. We arrived in Tokyo but left on the first day of the tour for Kyoto. We then returned to Tokyo about a week later and spent the remainder of our time there. Our hotel was in the Ginza district, a very high-end affair with expensive stores and restaurants (but easy to find affordable places mixed among them). Text and photos by Phillip Oliver, Dirt Therapy