Japan Day 13 (jū san)

Today we deicded to visit the Imperial Palace gardens. We started at the Ote-mon gate.


This is the windy path we took through the gardens. As usual, it was hot and humid (like 80% or more) so we were thoroughly drenched and exhausted by the end of the day.


Debbie is standing right below the gate.


About a 100 samurai would hang out in this guardhouse and determine who could get access to the palace grounds from here. You can imagine hordes of vendors and such arguing with bored samurai.


This is what the walls of the grounds look like. The inner courtyard is up at the top of that wall.



There were several nice ponds in the lower gardens area.




My dad would love all the perfectly manicured Japanese pine trees.


Here's the beginning of the Shiomizaka Slope up into the inner courtyard. It doesn't look like much, but it sucks when it's hot and humid.


You get a nice view of the moat from the slope.


Once you get up you can see the remains of Edo castle. All that's left is the stone base. It was finished in 1638 and was the tallest building in Tokyo at the time. It burned down in 1657.


After the castle burned down they used Fujimi-Yagura as a temporary replacement. The Shogun could look at Mt. Fuji and also the fireworks down in Tokyo bay.


Coming back down to the bottom level, there's another guardhouse.


The outside moat has a bunch of swans, including a baby.


We walked around the outside moat after the gardens. What do you bet that the little overhang was where the toilets were?


The park outside the grounds was filled with these perfectly pruned pines. Of course no one is allowed on the grass.



I really wanted to get up to the Nijubashi bridge but they had security guards preventing the masses from intruding onto the inner palace grounds.


Around sunset we finally left the grounds and headed back for the subway.



Many more pics