From the Sublime

It was a day of two halves. This morning Pete and I took of for coffee at what is now our favourite coffee shop in Tokyo, I even had a large one even though it makes me.......well never mind.

We discussed touristy options and decided on a visit to the Imperial Palace Gardens as neither of us have been there before. And it was on our way to our ultimate destination.

The gardens were very lovely and very serene as are many gardens within Tokyo. Oasis of calm in amongst the hustle and bustle and noise, high rise office and apartment buildings, wide roads, metro lines and flying expressways. Not to mention the people.

We visited the East Gardens which do not contain the palace itself, not being open to the public. They are surrounded by a moat and date back to the Edo period, about 1600. Various additions and changes have been made by Emperors over the years, often following enemy attack and burning apparently. This includes a very nice Japanese traditional garden with a carp lake and waterfall.

Our second destination was the complete opposite; Tokyo Dome City. We had tickets for the Giants v the Tigers baseball match which was held this evening in the dome. This is the home ground for the Giants with a capacity of 55,000 seated spectators, completely under the domed, non-opening roof.

I've never been to, or watched, a baseball match before so Pete explained the rules so I had some rudimentary understanding of what was going on. Baseball is the most poplar sport in Japan, having been introduced in 1872 according to the Wiki place. There was an almost capacity crowd and lots of noise and excitement, so a great atmosphere. Young woman were constantly running up and down the aisles selling all kinds of refreshment including draft beer from barrels they had strapped to their backs.

The Tigers won after the match was drawn at full time and an extra three inningings were played. I was pleased with that as my football club Hull City are known as the Tigers.