Another photo-heavy post. If you get the feeling you’re just looking at someone’s travel pictures (and you are) just scroll faster. At least it’s not a slide show. Also, as I see more of the pictures, I realize my camera skills are way below what they used to be (if they were as good as I remember). You can go take your own pictures if you want. These are just tourist pictures.

I’m surprised I took so many pictures today. The main point of the day was to meet my cousin’s kids for the first time since I saw them when they visited me. Kota went to Tokyo Institute of Technology and got his Masters Degree and he and I are more alike than we should be for being first cousins once removed (basically, my mom’s sister’s kid’s kid.) He’s been working long hours at Yahoo Japan and I haven’t seen him for fourteen years, I think. His sister I haven’t seen for ten years and she’s working at a mysterious clothing design company, I think (my mom and my aunt can never get it straight so my sister and I are both wondering what it is). They’re both from the same small town in Yamaguchi Prefecture where my aunt lives but they’re both in Tokyo now.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I decided it would be a good day to visit the last section of Shinjuku, at least the last section I had a separate map for, Ushigome. It’s in the far eastern corner of the city of Shinjuku.

I walked to Ushigome, which isn’t as far as I went for dinner last night. But it does take me the same direction as I’ve been before, past the road to the Aikido Hombu, and right past the place where Five-O got all up in my grill.

One of the first things I stumbled across (and I’ve been by here before) is a temple right next to a subway station. The corrugated roof is a subway entrance and the wooden gate is to the temple.

Here’s the gate to the Kyoouji Temple.

Not too far off is where I was hassled by the Man. Looks like they’re bored again today, looking for something to do.

The first thing I found out is that this map shows some of the more boring routes through Shinjuku. At least in the center of the map. But it started off promising with the former site of Kondo Isami’s Shiekan, where they taught martial arts with the sword, staff, and also unarmed.

But then it was a slog through a bunch of city streets. There’s an interesting microwave tower to break the monotony.

And, when I got lost, a weird bulbous concrete house.

As I got further east in Shinjuku, the streets got hillier and more industrial around an area of Dai Nippon Printing.

But the road finally got me away from the industrial area.

And finally to some shrines. Here’s Chanoki-inari Jinja.

Continuing up the steps leads to Ichigaya-kamegaoka-hachimangu Shrine.

Looks like they’re setting up for a festival.

There were several sub-shrines as well.

Here’s a small shrine on the stairs between the larger shrines.

On my way down, I noticed the lower shrine had another shrine behind it.

But I needed to pay attention because the stairs were quite steep.

Right around the corner was Doun-ji Temple.

And almost next door was what I think is Chotai-zenji Zen temple. If you keep going you just end up to the entrance to the Ministry of Defense.

I stopped for lunch at Mos Burger because I haven’t had enough burgers lately (hah).

They did have a new special burger from Hokkaido, I think.

I should have known better, but I kept following the map through the neighborhoods. Shrines that aren’t named on the map can be quite tiny, like this one next to the French-Japanese Institute of Tokyo.

Next stop was Miyagi Michio Memorial Hall, a Japanese composer.

I believe this is the Miyagi Michio concert hall next to his museum.

Harder to find was the former residence of author Ozaki Koyo. It was down a path and I’m not sure if it’s the house of the outbuilding to the left.

Nearby are Jonen-ji.

And Enpuku-ji?

Shozo-in?

Seriously, there’s a whole street of temples in an area called Yokotera-machi and I couldn’t keep them straight.

Here’s a placard to Shimamura Hogetsu’s place of death (remains of the artist’s club) and it’s just a placard.

Maybe this one is Shozo-in?

Anyo-ji?

Most of the area I went to see is old alleyways with restaurants but there are a couple of larger shrines nearby. This is the gate to Akagi-jinja.

Another able where you can see the shrine in the distance.

The shrine itself that I didn’t really want to approach at first.

It’s hard to see, but there was a wedding going on inside.

I got a picture of the bride and groom coming out.

And another of the bridal party getting ready to take a group photo.

The main road through the area is Kagurazaka-dori.

It’s on a hill in the neighborhood.

On the main road is Zenkoku-ji temple.

It’s pretty busy compared to the other temples.

Right now I’m standing amongst a group of people drawing watercolors of the gate.

Here’s the first of the pictures of the alleyways. This is a bar and that sign above the door is about head-high for me so it’s a tiny door.

This is right around the corner. The signs are restaurants.

A wider back alley.

This alleyway also has homes.

And of course, some of the alleyways have stairs.

Just past the shopping area, across a busy street is Tsukudo-hachiman Jinja. It’s supposed to have the oldest stone gate in Shinjuku, but I’m not sure which one it was. This one?

Or this one in the middle of the staircase?

Or this tiny one in front of a secondary shrine?

Kagurazaka-wakamiya-hachiman jinja is closer to the shopping area and very near Tokyo University of Science. I didn’t take any pictures of the school, or it’s odd museum which looked a little like the old computer museum at Powell’s Technical books just with lots more Japanese computers. And dozens of mechanical adding machines, too.

And another tiny unlabeled (on the map) shrine.

At this point I was getting lost trying to deicde how to go back to the hotel before dinner. For that reason, I have no idea what temple this is.

I made it to the train, and back to the hotel. We met in Harajuku and I was standing at the wrong exit. Both exits appear to be on the same side of the station. The one I was standing at lead to Takeshita street which was packed full of yoots.

My sister reminded me to take a picture of my cousins, so this is it. I spent most of the time talking.

But I did have a frozen beer! The foam is frozen to keep the beer cold.

And I forgot to take pictures of dinner except for this plate. Everthing was on the skewers, but we were in the middle of deskewering things.

And that’s about it for the day.