Beautiful pics. It's nice that your Cosmos are still blooming. Mine started very early and are finished now. How I love that Heavenly Blue!! I grew it last year, but never got around to sowing them this year. It's a pity they bloom so late. My Belle Blanche bloom lasted for less than a day, but there are two more just ready to pop. Thanks for sharing.

Jasdip, I thought that would bother me too. We did try and avoid rush hour in train stations in the early morning and late afternoons. We only ended up riding a couple of packed trains where we had to stand. Most Japanese are extremely polite and quiet. Trains, amusement parks...so quiet. I got a rude reminder on our return to LAX. It was so jarring, the rudeness and loudness that I turned to Lauren in the airport and asked her why are Americans so d@mn loud and rude?!!! Even Japanese car horns are politely quiet. Extremely muted beeps. Even with the packed streets in touristy market places, it wasn't bad.

Eld6161, the dark haired one on the left is my daughter. Nicole, it's all beef. Later in the night we ate what I'm assuming is more expensive beef because the fat content was much more. That platter was also much smaller. The beef on the table was very marbled with lots of fat too, much more than in the US. Very tender and delicious. Lauren and I shared Wagyu at a market. I think it was 2 pieces lol.

Lars, yes, lots of people but even then it is surprisingly quiet compared to the U.S. I didn't really notice it until we got off the plane in LA. Americans are so noisy! Even in Tokyo, walking the streets it wasn't noisy. Even their horns are quiet. One of our taxi drivers got irritated by people in his way so he honked at them, really funny the tiny noise his car horn made.