Japan - Day 12 - Imperial Gardens

This morning Lee let me and the boys sleep in (after my late night with Lee the night before). She and Nana went to the Imperial gardens, which is just across the moat from our hotel. There they had a guided tour with two guides. The gardens were the Shogun fortace from the Edo period. Lee and Nana really enjoyed the tour and found it very interesting.

Tea Ceremony Class

When Nana and Lee got back from their tour we got lunch at our hotel, then took a little nap before heading out to a tea ceremony class. Matthew was unable to attend because he had a summer team class to take. After a little train mix-up we made it to our class. Our very kind instructor was enamored with Nico's creations with his place setting items. The class was very interesting, we got to try a bunch of traditional Japanese teas, as well as make our own batch of matcha tea. Nico really enjoyed making the matcha tea, but in typical Nico fashion, he didn't try any of the teas. After the class Nana and I each got a matcha ice cream cone from the shop connected to the class, it was so delicious!

Ramen for Dinner

When we finished up our class and ate our ice cream we headed back to the hotel to get Matthew and head out for dinner. Nico had been wanting to go another ramen restaurant since we took the ramen tasting class. So when we got back to the hotel Lee asked our concierge for a good spot to get ramen. We took the train to the ramen place and when we got there there was a huge line out the door! The ramen was good, but not nearly has good as some of the ramen we had on our ramen tour.