The Imperial Palace
This is our third and final day in Tokyo - though we will spend the night here before flying home. We start off walking to another one of Tokyo’s stunningly designed shopping complexes - Toranomon Hills. We’ve no intention of shopping - it’s just the nearest metro station - but I can’t help being blown away by the design of the place.
We then explore the Marunouchi area where there’s a sense of new and old, with sculptures on the streets and a lovely garden area with shaded seating and coffee shops. Despite it being January, many are sitting in the sunshine albeit clad in winter clothes - and we join them having purchased a delicious hot chocolate from one of the artisan shops.
Our main focus today is The Imperial Palace. While most of the huge park area is open to the public on a daily basis, G is very proud of himself in managing to get a permit to visit this afternoon. It’s required quite a bit of effort online and we get our permits printed out in the hotel.
Now all this tends to suggest a small, select group tour. We’ve been told it’s only in Japanese, but it still seems worth doing. When we arrive at the meeting point, we’re checked in, given an official lanyard, and waved through the security gates, past the long line of people waiting for a permit issued today. We’d assumed these will only be issued if the total (small) number hasn’t been reached, but soon realise as we are sitting in the rather large hall that basically everyone is being admitted! There are literally hundreds of us!
We are told there will be one tour in each language - Japanese, English, French, German - and inevitably the English one in huge! Our guide however, does her best and we are able to hear her as we walk round the complex and she explains the history of each building. The actual palace itself sits on the former site of Edo Castle and is actually very modern in style, constructed 1964-68 and designed by Junzo Yoshimura. What is far more familiar is the iconic view from just below the double arched bridge which I take when our tour is over (my main today). And we even find some early cherry blossom - it’s a particular type of cherry, our guide tells us!
We consider exploring further, but decide we’ve covered enough ground for today - and besides, we need to return to the hotel to prepare for the next part of our adventure which will involve sorting out our luggage for our train journey tomorrow ….
Extras - early cherry blossom, sculpture in Maranouchi, inside Toranomon Hills
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