Sunday morning is one of the rare times when the streets of Tokyo are empty. Coming on summer, it gets light really- before 5am – makes it a perfect time for a walk, especially if you’re jet lagged. We walked from Iidabashi through Kudanshita to the Imperial Palace, then back through Yasukuni Shrine to Kagurazaka then Iidabashi.

A small crowd was gathered around the Budokan for a college judo tournament – Hang Ten San Diego was represented…

This sign in front of the Budokan, says “Exercising Prohibited” – is walking or standing considered exercise?

As the morning progresses, Tokyoites start to come out to catch up on their exercise. A popular jogging course is the Imperial Palace perimeter, a 5k run – it can get very congested with joggers and walkers later in the day.

Each weekday evening, about 5000 joggers run this course – can you imagine Lake Miramar (5 mile course) with 5000 runners?  The congestion is becoming a problem, as runners collide into tourists and walkers – some areas are narrow and other are major tourist spots.  A TV news program ran a story on this with simulations where they showed runners running through a crowd of tourist without any warning and another where the runner shouts “coming through” – seems like common sense. Unless its really early in the morning, I’m not a big fan of this course since you have to run along side some major roads – auto fumes can ruin a nice run very quickly.

Police security around the North Korea Residents Association – North Korea’s de facto embassy.