Royal visitors

Good for Masako. She looks very happy. She and Q Maxima are great mates.

Welkom in Japan Koning Willy en Maxima.

Oranje bover,

Good to see the world's concentrating on the main problems that face humanity: global warming, terrorism, ebola and royal banquets.

Nice of them to let her out the house.

Wow, larger than gentle giants in America.

Welcome too Japan. Hope they do not make you sit on a tatami mat, nor a common sized short Japanese chair.

Nice picture. Royals meeting and exchanging their royal smiles.

Re: JapanGal "Hope they do not make you sit on a tatami mat, nor a common sized short Japanese chair" Sorry JG the tatami mats are reserved for common and peasants alike, the nobles have never either today nor in the past treated as common as the hard sweating back breaking working class, because I sure haven't seen a regular common working person invited to the sit down the nobles.

"Royalty" in the twenty-first century should be only used ironically, as in, "He thinks he's royalty." Someday these anachronistic privileges we bestow will become tawdry and insufficient; we will shrug off the last chains -- those in our minds.

Crown Princess Masako will attend Wednesday night’s banquet, her first imperial banquet in 11 years.

Truly sad. And a real waste of a very smart, well-educated, well-traveled/internationalized woman who could have been a great role model for Japanese young women, and maybe even been a bright light for the Imperial Family much like Kate has been in the UK. But instead of allowing her skills to help pull the Imperial Family into the 21st Century, the IHA beat her into depression and seclusion.

This photo could do without Abe.