Is it Paris?

No, it's Toyko. On my way home from China, I got a three day layover in Japan. The plane ticket didn't cost anything extra, so I figured why not? Well, Japan is expensive to stay in, but it was worth it. Overall, not too expensive. It's a fun city. I didn't have enough time to leave and see any other parts of Japan. As for the Staue of Liberty and the Eiffle Tower, I'm not sure why they are there. They are both models of the originals, but the Tokyo Tower is actually a little taller than the Eiffle Tower.

The tallest mountain in Japan, Mt. Fuji. I was going to go out and see it, but there was a typhoon in the area and the clouds were obscuring the view. Well, on and off through the day. I thought the clouds would be worse than they actually were, but it's still a 2 hour trip to see it closer. I was actually amazed at well you can see it from Tokyo though.

Tokyo has some nice bridges. I liked this one, especially with the couple standing enjoying the view. PDA is much more common in Japan than it is in the rest of Asia. I actually saw a couple couples kissing in public.

This bridge seemed like it was falling over. It just disturbed me.

This one really distubed me. It looks like those cables are doing nothing. The only counteractive force is from the beam that is going down into the bridge. But, in most bridges, where the support goes down, there is something supporting it. Here, the only thing supporting the beam that is holding up the bridge is the bridge. Hmm, I think it's mainly just for show. Maybe if it had some cables connecting the two slanted beams, it might add a little more strength. Yes, it could be argued that the beams are helping because the support is closer to the edge of the beam. From an engineering standpoint, it just doesn't look useful.

Speaking of leaving things out, is it just me, or did they forget to connect these two lamps? It seems an odd design to me, but then again, there were a lot of things in this city that left me wondering why. As advanced as the Japanese are in technology, their building strategies seem a little strange.

It looks like they left this project half undone. I wouldn't think it is too hard to cut a sidewalk in half with saw...

No one was working on it, so I thought I would help them out a little bit.

Pretty semi-covered walkway with a mirror at the edge. It was just begging me to take this picture.

Right next to the walkway was some kids playing baseball. This is one of the most popular sports in Japan.

Apparently Duck Duck Goose is also a popular game of Japanese kids. I saw them playing in the hallway at the Museum of Maritime Science.

This museum was quite interesting. It talked about many different aspects of ships and had some very nice replicas of them.

Some business men coming out of a nice days work.

I was wondering where the aliens were, but this is just the convention center, actually where those business men were coming out of. It really reminds me of something from the movie "Indepence Day."

They have some other really nice buildings around though. i really liked the refections coming out of them.

I like this solution to parking garages. Save space by not having a driveway up them, just use some cables and pull the cars up in to place. Kind of a pain to get your car down from the top though.

Amid all this suburban sprawl, there are some nice trees. I walked around tying to find a park one day, but couldn't do it. I only found this one from the top of a 45 story building. Saw some green and started walking towards it.

What is it with me and taking pictures of my reflection in a square arch.

That is kind of what I felt like doing a couple times.

(click here for 13 pictures of interesting Japanese people)

A little pano of some buildings around downtown.