A day in Central Tokyo & the Imperial Palace East Garden 「東京中心部・皇居東御苑」with a sidetrip to Shunjuku 「新宿」

Today we rose early (shock horror) to catch the bus, train, other train, then other train to Ōtemachi 「大手町」station for some quality viewing of the Imperial Palace East Garden, which is the only quarter of the Imperial grounds that is open to the public (not including the two days a year when the Emperor opens His Imperial Palace to the public-- January 2nd, and December 23rd, which is his birthday).

Admission is free, and it's was definitely worth going just to see the ancient stone walls, built by the Tokugawa shoguns (wiki it) as their seat of power to rule Japan from.

The sun wasn't out, but the clouds/smog kept the heat in, so before long our leisurely stroll around the gardens turned into a leisurely sauna around the gardens.

Surrounding the garden compound is a big moat, filled with white swans and ornamental carp, with thousands and thousands of dragonflies skimming across the tiny wavelets that form on any large body of water. It's a pity the dragonflies move so fast, as I wanted to get a photo of them. They're jet black, with a single band of either white or yellow halfway down the abdomen, but as they fly over the water all you can see is the coloured band, giving the illusion that there are a mass of coloured specks hovering majestically above the water.

There were not many people around the gardens, which was good, as is makes for better scenic photos. Even when there were people, Ben would wait (as he often does) for the majority of them to move out of the way so he could get his "perfect shot".

Gardens in Japan are very well kept, with manicured lawns, perfectly pruned shrubs, and an aesthetic quality that you look at and instantly recognise as being Japanese.

I almost stood on a little skink as we were wandering around. It was no longer than five centimetres long, but had an electric blue tail, so Ben got down on his knees and followed it around for five minutes trying to get a photo of it. Every time he'd go to take a photo, it would move just out of the frame. Ben would reposition, the lizard would move. Eventually he got a shot he was happy with, so we were able to move on.

After the Imperial Palace East Garden we continued on to Kitanomaru Park 「北の丸公園」, where we were greeted by what sounded like thousands of cicadas. They weren't as loud as the cicadas we get in Melbourne, but they were higher pitched, which made them more annoying.

Kitanomaru Park is different from Yoyogi Park in the way it's pathways snake around the park, through groves of trees, small pavilions and generally lead you through the park, whereas those in Yoyogi are optional to follow. Yoyogi allows you to walk anywhere through its premises, while Kitanomaru guides you gently through it's beautiful greenery. Both are stunning parks to visit, so if you're in Tokyo and feel like a bit of a stroll, you won't go wrong in choosing either of these to admire.

Within Kitanomaru is a large Budokan 「武道館」-- an establishment for the practice of martial arts. We didn't enter, as there were many school children inside, dressed in their hakama and carrying their naginata to spar with, and we didn't want to intrude.

Beside one of the ponds in Kitanomaru Park was a group of somewhat nerdy Japanese youths, playing with bubbles. Ben took a few photos of their antics, and we sat down at one of the nearby park benches to watch them for a while. They eventually brought out the big guns and blew bubbles bigger than my head (no ego jokes please...).

We managed to snap a picture of a dragonfly at rest on a shrub, to give you an idea of what they look like. Now imagine thousands of them darting around the surface of a moat, and that's what we saw. Pretty cool, huh?

We bought a can of Coke Zero from a vending machine within the park, and Ben was impressed by it's size, so we had to take a photo of it. 500ml of "Full taste. Zero sugar. Sharp."-- sharp indeed.

From Kitanomaru we ventured a bit futher until we reached our next destination: Yakukuni-jinja 「靖国神社」, a shrine dedicated to the Japanese casualties of war (2.4 million since 1853). The shrine itself is controversial in the fact that a group of A-grade war criminals are enshrined here, and are visited annually by high-profile politicians on August 15th (the anniversary of Japan's defeat in WWII). The loudest protests are heard from Japan's Asian neighbours, who suffered direly at the hands of the Japanese aggression during the world war.

This shrine is mostly concrete, and as such doesn't really hold the ancient sense of wonder that other shrines we've visited have, but it's worth checking out for this reason. The torii leading up to the shrine are massive, the gates themselves are a simple dark wood with a giant gold chrysanthemum (the flower of the Imperial household) on each gate.

As at every shrine we visit, we picked up a little charm from the gift shop here, as well as a stamp in our little stamp book. (Many shrines in Japan have an ink pad and their own individual stamp which you can either put on the paper they provide, or do as Ben and I are doing, and collect them in a little book we have on us, courtesy of my friend in Australia, Nicole.)

Near the shrine is a little museum you can check out, containing various items commemorating the Japanese war dead, such as mini-torpedo submarines, containing a single man and designed to ram into the hull of Allied ships. An underwater kamikaze 「神風」.

On our way back to the station to head to our next destination, we saw a Lawson's convenience store, which is one of the only ways to obtain a ticket to the Studio Ghibli Museum, where you can immerse yourself in the magic and wonder created by Mr. Hayao Miyazaki 「宮崎駿」. Some examples of his works are Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbour Totoro and Spirited Away.

This museum is often booked out for months in advance, so Ben and I were both shocked and insanely happy to have swiped two admission tickets for August the first! To obtain the tickets you first have to "order" them from a touch-screen machine that looks almost like an ATM. If your Japanese isn't exceptionally good, I suggest you do what Ben and I did and look it up on the internet, or you'll find yourself going around in increasingly frustrated circles, as the machine has no English options (unlike many other machines in Tokyo). Or you could book the tickets online before you leave, which I've been told is a much easier way to do it.

So once you master the machine, it'll print off a receipt, which you take to the counter, give to the clerk and receive your tickets.

By this time it was around 4pm, so we decided we'd go to Shinjuku for a bit. We've made a list of things we've yet to see/experience in Tokyo, and Shinjuku holds quite a few, so we figured we'd try do a few of them while we were nearby.

First stop: Yoshinoya, one of Japan's fast-food chains. The menu is tiny, but the service is fast, the food is cheap and filling and the staff are friendly. The drink menu consists of two things: water or beer. This isn't uncommon here in Tokyo, as several restaurants we've frequented so far have been the same-- beer or water (or sometimes green tea).

Unfortunately Shinjuku Park 「新宿御苑」was due to close it's gates in half an hour, so we headed off to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. Sounds like a ridiculous place for tourists to visit, right? Wrong! They have some pretty cool architecture, plus a free observation deck 55-storeys above the streets of Shinjuku, which give you some awesome views of Tokyo. They also give you a very in-your-face idea of how insanely huge the Tokyo metropolis actually is-- buildings stretching out in all directions as far as the eye can see.

On clear days you can see Mount Fuji to the west, but unfortunately for us, this was definitely not a clear day, as the clouds and smog hid Mount Fuji from us completely. A small cafe and gift shop are there if you need a bite to eat or some souvenirs. I had to take our photo using my ridiculously long arms, because the loud Russians who were there with us looked nasty. No comments on the shine factor please-- it was friggin' humid.

After gazing over Tokyo for a while we decided to head home. Since were trying to not be a burden on Taka's mum anymore we catch the buses everywhere, and today the buses were running on a public holiday timetable, meaning the last bus leaves our local station way earlier than usual.

So we trained to Moriya, jumped on the bus and... found out we hopped on the wrong one. Oops! The bus driver spoke insanely fast Japanese, so I couldn't understand much, and Ben just stood there blinking, but I managed to get directions on how to walk to Taka's house, so walk we did. Mr. Bus-driver told us it'd take around 10 minutes. In reality it took more like 30, but was a nice evening so the walk wasn't so bad.

When we got home I jumped online (obviously...) and started planning our next leg of the trip: Kyoto. Because it is now summer holidays and a major Japanese festival is approaching, we need to get accommodation and train tickets to Kyoto organised quickly, or they'll be sold out, which would suck majorly.