Happy Birthday Emperor

Today is the Emperor's 75th birthday! Glenn and I went to Tokyo today to see him give his birthday greeting. We waited in line for an hour lined up with 1000s of other people outside the Imperial Palace gates. After awhile they began releasing different lines at a time. I was impressed with the organization of such masses of people. We finally went through the gates and along a road til we got to a large opening. We stood in front of a long building with a glass-enclosed balcony and waited for another 40 minutes. Not only is the Palace only open 2 days a year, it was only open from 9-11:10 am today. We were there for the first of 3 greetings the Emperor gave today. He spoke for about 5 minutes and our guide later translated that he basically said his health is doing better but not well, the economy is doing poorly but hopefully better next year and thanks for coming out for his birthday. It was a neat experience.
We also visited the Tokyo Tower. Think Eiffel Tower of Japan. Since today is a national holiday it was pretty crowded and it is the 50th anniversary of the tower. It was pretty cloudy out so we couldn't see very far. On clear days you can see all the way to Fuji-san.
Lastly we went to the Meiji Shrine. It is a beautiful shrine dedicated to the Emperor Meiji and his wife. That is the great-grandfather of the current emperor. It is a huge area of Tokyo with a forest surrounding it that was hand planted by volunteers to wanted to dedicate a shrine to Emperor Meiji. A lot of historical sites in Japan are not very old because of WWII. Our tour guides are always particular in how they discuss the war. They usually just say "when the Allieds bombed" or "when we lost the war" or things of that nature. The Meiji shrine was built in the 1920s but was not destroyed by the war.
Glenn and I are looking forward to a Christmas with just the three of us (Stella) and Christmas dinner with other families in the squadron. I'm not sure I can stretch out present opening til 2 pm like Lawson family tradition since there are only 2 of us, but I'm going to try! Merry Christmas to everyone!