A Little More of Matsumoto and Back to Asakusa!

Our train for Tokyo didn't depart until 11:00, so we had some time to kill in the morning. We decided to check out one of the nearby shrines, again on the recommendation of the woman at the front desk, and a "famous" well. More on that later. First, Yohashira Shrine:

Outside of the shrine. Nice.

Inner shrine. Note the nice taiko drum.

On the way to the "famous" well, we spotted an interesting work of "art" (I'm using a lot of air quotes in this post) next to a police box.

I'll let you come up with your own caption

So, the well that we were told was famous was certainly nice.

It has its own gazebo and wind socks

And the water was fresh and cold.

People were filling up liter bottles while we were here

But I'm not sure how it's any better than any of the other wells in the city. It is the well used in the Matsumoto city tourism guide, so maybe that's why it's "famous". There are over 20 other wells dotting the city.

Anyway, after that we headed to the station, passing one of the more "impressive" bike shops we'd seen in Japan.

They probably have anything you'd want, but finding it...

The rest of the day was fairly predictable. We boarded the train to Nagano, transferred to the Shinkansen to Ueno, took the Yamanote to Meguro and had Indian food at Rasoi, went to Akihabara to shop, ate some crepes

and noticed Baskin-Robbin's was making inroads in the Japanese market (along with Wendy's and Burger King. We only export the best to other countries)

Baskin Robbin's assimilated well.

Friday was more of the same. Meiji Jingu, Ikebukuro, Ueno. Many of our old favorites. I'll leave you with some of the more amusing pics we came up with.

Nyanko-sensei jambouree

Andersen Bakery Panda Buns. The Panda is Ueno's mascot.

Panda reading a book.

Sanrio characters get serious in a race to determine the most popular one.

Wired Cafe's newest parfait creations. We had to walk an extra mile before eating these.

Some random display of stuffed animals in a store window.

Tomorrow (Saturday), we are going to take a day trip down to Kamakura to visit the Daibutsu, which we haven't seen since 2009, and some of the other attractions in a city full of temples and shrines.