Sunday July 23

Breakfast at the Riverside Cafe.

Egg on avocado toast. Orange juice. Pineapple and lemon juice. Brioche French toast with a hard-sugar glaze on a sweet whipped cream. Bacon.

At a coffe cafe with coffee art magizine.

Japan's biggest Starbucks is across the street from our hotel. A 45 minute wait to order and a line outside. Four stories tall.

Green wall at the bottom. The concrete big thing is enclosed car flyover loops for getting on and off an elevated freeway. At the very top of the concrete is a garden. "Sky Garden".

Temple University campus tour. Because her school said "Now, you need to tour some college campuses this summer. ". She's going into her junior year.

Temple has an own mascot and is filled with owl puns.

Nearing the end of the semester. The art majors are putting up art around the building. So I saw cat art.

Also around the building, particularly on the classroom whiteboards, were small photographs of pets saying " This is the best fur- baby".

Next we walked to the next location.

Cherry blossoms are a big deal here.

Snack at 7-11 involved smoothies. And rice triangles wrapped in seaweed with fillings.

7-11 has a seating area upstairs. So we sat up there to eat. This is the view across the street. The window had striped of frosted and I frosted glass, that is why the bottom is blurry.

A hole in the ground between two subway lines. The layered part is a fountain.

Taking the train out to the Gotoku-ji Temple.

The story is that a noble was out falconing, and when he came past the temple, the monk's cat beckoned him inside with a raised paw. The rich man came to the temple gate, and was saved from being struck by lightning. The cat with the raised paw (and no coin) became the symbol of new connections and friendships. It does not bring you money, it brings you opportunities.

Lillian got the opportunity to pet a very fluffy dog while we walked the castle ruins of Setagaya.

Back to our neighborhood a very tasty but unphotographic dinner

Back past Starbucks to give it another try

This morning Starbucks was surrounded by taxis and had a sign outside that it was a 15-45 minute wait to get in it's a four story Starbucks - the biggest in Japan

Much easier to get in at eight o'clock at night!

The level of detail is amazing.

There is a big brass container in the middle where beans go to rest after they've been roasted. All around this urn are brass cherry blossoms suspended on wires, floating down to the floor. The Starbucks is situated on the edge of the Meguro River, known for its cherry blossoms.

The copper is woven into the decor everywhere. Even the dish you put your money in to pay is copper, with no patina.

An iced peach tea drink, a frozen mint lavender lemon tea drink, a confection of croissant like paisley filled with thick strawberry jam, a dark chocolate tart.

We went to the elevator to ride down to the basement and see if the bathrooms carried the copper theme.

We discovered the grey stair wells were covered in marker mosaic of the history of coffee and Starbucks! The bottom level is volcanic lush land with a tiger and an elephant. One level is poeple picking tea leaves. Another level shows the process from plant to bag to truck to move coffee beans. Another level shows the building we were in and the cherry blossoms over the river. The top shows Starbucks around the world.

There are terraces on the third and fourth floors. Our hotel is across the street.