Unreal City

 At times, I have felt like I have entered the "unreal city," T.S. Eliot mentions in "The Waste Land."  Lights, bullet trains, neon signs, cars driving on the left side of the road, and endless endless blocks of office buildings, shops, restaurants, and people.  Tokyo is an interesting mix of the height of technology with a deep acknowledgement of the past.  Everyday, I walk past women dressed in kimonos carrying a parasol in one hand and talking on an iPhone in the other.  Tokyo never ceases to amaze me in terms of the breadth of its eccentricities.  Yesterday, I traveled to Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo bay, and the Meji Shrine, a green oasis  in the middle of the city.  There, I was met by a number of sights that I can only classify as Japanese.  Below are some of the both wondrously new and old, things I saw.

The torii gates at the entrance of the Meji Shrine

At the torii gate entrance

A Shinto service (I think)

The entrance to the Meji Shrine

Similar to performing ablutions in Islam, before you pray at
the shrine you are supposed to wash your face and hands

I saw a host of people dressed up in costumes
 taking pictures in the park in Odaiba

A great example of modern Japanese architecture

Odaiba was full of interesting buildings, this one was
a part of a tunnel for pedestrians to cross the street

A beautiful ferris wheel on the island

Venus Fort: the entire mall has a fake sky and
is lit so it resembles twilight throughout the day

The famous Fuji building: the ball in the center
houses a restaurant and an observation deck

Flame of Freedom: but personally it reminded me of an
organism we learned about in biology called a sea pen

The island even features a replica of the Statue of Liberty

Defies explanation

Just to show you how large the statue was, you can see
an office building and a Ferris wheel in the background