This is the Kanda Myojin shrine courtyard looking towards the inside of the entrance gate.  The shrine is the nerve centre as it were of the Kanda Matsuri which is said to be one of the three most important shinto festivals and takes place in May every second year.  It runs for a week but the events I came to see happen at the weekend.

My hotel was within spitting distance so on the Friday I was able to watch preparations being made including the all important setting up of food and drink stalls without which no celebration ever takes place in Japan.

 

A while ago I bought a book that describes 40 odd walks around Tokyo and later in the day I followed a couple of them.  One handily started at Kanda Myojin shrine, passed through another couple of nearby shrine/temples and over a bridge on which rail enthusiasts hang out to watch trains whizzing by

then past the orthodox cathedral of St Nicolai (sorry about the tree) and on to the district of

Jimbocho famous for its multitude of (mostly second-hand) bookshops.

Then I moved on to a neighbouring walk that took in the Tokyo Dome (sports and concert venue ably supported in my picture by a train that goes through a buiding), an amusement park and one of Tokyo's many green spaces.