Glimpses.1 of Unfamiliar Japan

Here are some pics from my trip to Japan in January 2010. Click on them to enlarge.

Some shots of the cat Silba. The third has the most true-to life colors.

Some downtown Tokyo street scenes. Note the elevated expressways in the picture above and one of the following ones. If everybody who needed to get across town had to use the surface streets, there would probably be gridlock.

The U. S. Embassy. Not beautiful, IMO, but not worse than a lot of other buildings in Tokyo. Where's Prince Charles when you need him to criticize an ugly design?

Walk from the New Otani Hotel to St. Ignatius Church, the long way around, with views of the "outer moat" of the imperial palace region. Note that shrubs were flowering in mid-January. The last shot is a dirt walkway along an embankment beside the moat.

Scenes from the "boro-ichi," a sort of flea market in my brother's neighborhood. The second and third photos show a stall where I bought a set of cufflinks. The fourth shows the gate of the residence of a feudal (Edo period) local lord.

Casals Hall, in the Ochanomizu area, where my sister-in-law gave an organ recital on Jan.16. It is owned by a university and it is expected to be torn down this spring to make room for another building. What looks like drapery in the first and third pictures is actually carved stone.

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Cathedral, near Casals Hall.

Residential streets in my brother's neighborhood.

My brother's house. The first time I saw it I was really startled because with the green shutters and the white exterior with overlapped siding, it looks a lot like my grandmother's house, especially at a glance from the end of the street, where the carport is not so apparent.