Day 3, Sunday, September 27, 2026: First Sights of Tokyo
Map of central Tokyo with East Gardens, Tokyo Tower, and other prominent sites.
We ate breakfast in the hotel, using two of the coupons we have been given for dining. The meal is buffet style with primarily Japanese items, but there were scatterings of Chinese, Indian, and European-style items, as well. Our favorites were clearly the pork dumplings. So good!! We sampled a good number of the offerings. However, the coffee was not to our tastes, and so, still having 25 minutes before the tour busses were scheduled to depart, Patrise hastened to find a local Starbucks and to find an ATM to get some spending funds for the day. She returned with two minutes to spare, and we boarded the bus for Group A.
I need to explain that this trip is a mix for us. That is, for the first part of the journey we are traveling with members of the Gate City Bar Association (GCBA) and their guests. [GCBA is the association originally founded for African American attorneys to have a professional network and to do professional development, in the days of the Jim Crow South, when they were not welcomed into – indeed they were not allowed to join – the Atlanta Bar Association. GCBA is still going strong and has proven its value time and again, especially for black attorneys in small firms or in solo practice. Patrise is a past president of the association. Although not as active, she still participates in some of their events and is inevitably asked each year to serve on one or more panels, to impart her wisdom learned from over forty years as a practitioner and as a leader in state and local bar associations.] When GCBA announced its trip to Japan, we decided to flex our tour plans and join them for the first seven days of our trip. On the eighth day, when they leave from Osaka – some will fly to Vietnam, others will return to Atlanta – the two of us will continue our tour in Japan. Later, we will fly from Osaka to Busan, South Korea and continue our tour there.
The buses traveled to the old part of Tokyo, which dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries. The city as it was known then was “Edo.” It was a fortified establishment with walls to protect it and it had several gates, places where there could be controlled entries and exits. Our group A consisted of 31 folks, and we were/are led by a guide named Masa. Masa explained some of the history of the old city of Edo, and the history of the shogunate led by Tokugowa, who ruled Japan beginning in the early 1600’s. It was under this Shogun and his successors that Edo became the most powerful city in Japan and essentially became its capital city. By the way, the Shogun was the supreme military commander and essentially had most of the power, whereas the Emperor was deified, but considered as being a figurehead and the ceremonial head of state. It was under the shoguns that the feudal system was made into a rigid and unyielding way of stratifying Japanese society that would last up to and (perhaps through) World War II.
We were dropped off at the front gate of the Edo district and from there we walked around, observing and shopping. The district consists of several buildings built or restored in the tradition of their historical period(s). All of them except one building – palace, temple, and shrine were destroyed during WWII. The only original building still standing is been the gate. Patrise and I purchased some souvenirs from our list, including two pair of chopsticks that we had our names etched into.
Row 1: Masa tells us about the Edo District; MAsa gathers the group to head into "old" Edo
Row 2: Walking through the district on a side street, selfie in the Edo district; crowds on main thorough fare of Edo
Row 3: The Buddhist temple; selfie from main thoroughfare park; side view of temple.
After touring and shopping the Edo district, the group gathered (eventually, but that’s a story for another time) back at our buses. From there, we were taken to the the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace. Now the palace itself is no longer in that location, and the palace where the Emperor actually lives is not accessible to the public, for obvious security reasons. Our guide gave us thirty minutes to walk to the gardens and return to our bus, so that we could head to a shopping/mall area and return to our district for lunch. (Be back to the bus by 12:15pm.) With this limitation on our time, Patrise and I walked to the garden, did a cursory walkthrough of a small portion of the grounds, then headed back to the bus. Shortly after we returned to the bus, we were informed by a WhatsApp chat message, that the time for returning to the buses had been extended by an additional 30 minutes. And what’s even more aggravating is that there were so many stragglers and folks taking their ever-loving time, that the actual time we left was an additional forty-five minutes. The garden visit that was supposed to be a quick 30-minute dash, in fact, became a 1-hr 45-minute excursion.
Various pictures of sites walking into, inside of and around the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace.
Still, we had a very nice conversation with two of our bus colleagues with whom we were not familiar – Genghis Shakhan and Chelsea Wilkerson. The two of them are law partners and life partners with offices in Atlanta and Warner Robins. They met in law school, John Marshall Law School, for which Patrise used to serve on the board of directors for a few years. Genghis remembered meeting and speaking with Patrise for a Gate City event in which members provided free legal advice to set up wills and other estate documents for members of the community too poor to afford to pay attorneys to do so. He is from Ohio and got his undergraduate education from The Ohio State University. Chelsea is a native Georgian, but not a native Atlantan. She grew up in Valdosta.
After the rest of the group returned to the bus – now it is 2:30pm – there was a lot of confusion about what was to occur next. Masa said we were headed to a shopping area, the Sunshine City Shopping District, not far from our hotel. Then he stated that we would be at the shopping district until 5pm, then head on the bus to dinner at 5:30. Lunch was supposed to be on our own while at Sunshine City. This in effect meant that we would be eating lunch three hours or less before dinner, but more than six hours after having breakfast. When we got to the shopping district, a few, loudly vocalized our desire to return to the hotel using the tour bus. After a brief discussion, that is what occurred. And so, the two of us ate lunch at a restaurant in the hotel. It was buffet style again, but it was good eating. After which, we returned to our room. Patrise immediately went to sleep, taking a 2-hour nap, while I worked on completing the blog entries.
After her nap, we ordered room service, ate dinner, and headed to bed early. I believe we will not have a problem sleeping tonight.
Buildings and People of Tokyo (as seen on Sunday, September 27)
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