Thursday, 5 May 2016 in more detail
Original posted LIVE here.
For our final day in Tokyo we awake to another beautiful sunny day, in fact we may now be a little sunburnt. A wonderful opportunity to go into central Tokyo and visit the Kokyogaien National Gardens. That's the official name of the beautiful gardens attached to the Imperial Palace, residence of the Emperor of Japan. This photo was taken at the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace.
Also a chance for us to take the JR line subway to Tokyo station and find out where the shinkansen train will depart for Nagano tomorrow morning. It was easy to find, and just as we conclude our time in Tokyo we now feel familiar enough with the various subway systems to travel wherever needed.
This map shows our destination this morning, our flat shown by the red marker in Shinjuku and the centre of Tokyo and the Imperial Palace circled in orange to the east.
We went to one of the above ground platforms at JR Shinjuku station
Once we get on the train, this is the view of the platform and signage
We arrive underground at Tokyo Station, our first aim is to find the Shinkansen (or bullet train) platforms we will be catching the Shinkansen from tomorrow morning. This signage at Tokyo Station makes it easy to find the platforms we need, platforms 14 to 23
Near the Shinkansen platforms these signs announce the various departures. They are in Japanese language . . . .
. . . . and then they cycle to English language. Tomorrow morning we are catching the 10:24am KAGAYAKI 509 Shinkansen to Nagano. That train is not shown on the below (we are too late to see today's version of that train) but similar trains are shown, so we have confidence where to come tomorrow morning and how long it took to get here. Our reconnaissance mission is successful, now to explore Tokyo!
We head west towards the Imperial Palace. Once outside, we see this historic main facade of Tokyo station . . .
Being a public holiday, there aren't many people here in the centre of Tokyo as we walk three blocks west to the Imperial Palace. We see this Rolls Royce drive past . . .
These beautiful trees were unexpected in the middle of this city of 38 million people . . . but this set the scene for the next few hours of exploration. The feeling here is very different other large cities I have visited, like Seoul, New York or Los Angeles. To my left I see these tranquil pine trees, to my right the large moat and traditional white keep atop the huge stone wall shown in the first photo above. Turtles and fish swim in the moat and on this sunny day it was delightful to soak up the history of this place.
There was, understandably, a significant Police presence over the bridge and in the surrounding areas. We watched a changing of the guards. This gate is across a bridge called Seimon Ishibashi.
Somewhere past the below bridge is the actual Imperial Palace where the Emperor resides. This bridge is called Double Bridge at the Palace.
Also a chance for us to take the JR line subway to Tokyo station and find out where the shinkansen train will depart for Nagano tomorrow morning. It was easy to find, and just as we conclude our time in Tokyo we now feel familiar enough with the various subway systems to travel wherever needed.
This map shows our destination this morning, our flat shown by the red marker in Shinjuku and the centre of Tokyo and the Imperial Palace circled in orange to the east.
We went to one of the above ground platforms at JR Shinjuku station
Once we get on the train, this is the view of the platform and signage
We arrive underground at Tokyo Station, our first aim is to find the Shinkansen (or bullet train) platforms we will be catching the Shinkansen from tomorrow morning. This signage at Tokyo Station makes it easy to find the platforms we need, platforms 14 to 23
Near the Shinkansen platforms these signs announce the various departures. They are in Japanese language . . . .
. . . . and then they cycle to English language. Tomorrow morning we are catching the 10:24am KAGAYAKI 509 Shinkansen to Nagano. That train is not shown on the below (we are too late to see today's version of that train) but similar trains are shown, so we have confidence where to come tomorrow morning and how long it took to get here. Our reconnaissance mission is successful, now to explore Tokyo!
We head west towards the Imperial Palace. Once outside, we see this historic main facade of Tokyo station . . .
Being a public holiday, there aren't many people here in the centre of Tokyo as we walk three blocks west to the Imperial Palace. We see this Rolls Royce drive past . . .
These beautiful trees were unexpected in the middle of this city of 38 million people . . . but this set the scene for the next few hours of exploration. The feeling here is very different other large cities I have visited, like Seoul, New York or Los Angeles. To my left I see these tranquil pine trees, to my right the large moat and traditional white keep atop the huge stone wall shown in the first photo above. Turtles and fish swim in the moat and on this sunny day it was delightful to soak up the history of this place.
There was, understandably, a significant Police presence over the bridge and in the surrounding areas. We watched a changing of the guards. This gate is across a bridge called Seimon Ishibashi.
Somewhere past the below bridge is the actual Imperial Palace where the Emperor resides. This bridge is called Double Bridge at the Palace.
Nearby is this Koban box called Marunouchi Police Station Iwa Idacho Plant Watchmen with several pushbikes next to it. Our current location is here.
We had actually walked to the wrong gate to enter the Imperial Palace gardens which are open to the public. But the weather is stunning so we didn't mind the walk to the correct entrance of the East Gardens called Ōte-mon Gate.
Upon entry you are given a plastic token which you have to hand back as you exit.
The gorgeous O-bansho Guardhouse greets you here.
"Yagura" is a building for both storage and defense. There used to be nineteen keeps surrounding the Edo Castle with only three remaining today. Fujimi-Yagura is the only three stories keep. It was named for Mt Fuji which could be seen from there in former times. It was popular as a place from where the Shogun enjoyed views of the fireworks at Ryogoku and of Tokyo Bay.
A lookout from this elevated section of the East Garden provided a commanding view of Tokyo and other areas of the Garden.
You can see India in the below photo for scale next to these immense stone walls . . .
Every part of the East Garden had new beauty.
Juxtaposition of old and new as we leave the Ōte-mon Gate.
We walked straight out of the gate, east along Eitai dori Avenue . . .
We found a modern entrance to JR Tokyo Station
In the arcade we found somewhere to eat this version of Thai cashew chicken with a Japanese twist it seems. But very tasty.
Now we catch another train, it is 1:48pm as you can see below and, as always, the signage in the train carriages changes from Japanese to English language. The numbers in the boxes tell you how many minutes until you arrive at each station. We are heading back to Akihabara, where we had briefly visited on our first day in Tokyo, to explore some more without the rain . . .
According to Wikipedia, Itasha (痛車?, literally "painful car") is a Japanese term for a fashion of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games. Here is an example on this Honda Civic we saw in Akihabara.
The KFC menu shows fish coated in the famous herbs and spices . . .
To finish our final day in Tokyo we visited the most amazing stationery store! We found it a few days ago and had to go back to explore some more. It's called Sekaido and it's located here. The website is here. It is not far from our apartment and it is several levels of all sorts of craft/stationery/paint goodies of every description.
The below photo shows just one side of one aisle on one level with an unbelievable variety of markers (as used by manga artists), top brands at cheap prices. India was in her element! Here she is choosing which ones to buy . . .
For example, that large pack of 80 ZIG "Clean Color Real Brush" markers you can see on the middle shelf was only Y13824 or AUD168 or $2 each. An impressive price, and the variety was unmatched by anything we had seen in Australia.
Sekaido is a must visit in Tokyo, but make sure you have enough time to explore. Earlier in the week I purchased a thin LED lightbox which was on special for less than $200. The courteous staff, knowing I was wanting to post it back to Australia, made sure it was packed ready to send, so I then went straight to a post office and mailed it home slowboat. Fortunately most electrical goods in Japan work on Australian 240 volt based electricity system but always check before you buy.
Now the biggest question of all . . . where do you eat dinner on your last night in Tokyo???? In our case, we chose to eat at a barbeque place on the same street as our apartment which we had passed many times and enjoyed the smell of the food. Tonight it was so busy we were offered this table on the footpath. The food was delicious (but mid-priced, around $40 for us both) and a fitting end to this Tokyo experience. Note the mushrooms on the grill with the meat, and vegetables too. Delicious!
The chef stood in the middle of the road and took the above photo of us eating dinner.
Soon we walked just a few dozen metres to our left and were back in our apartment, packing for our departure tomorrow.
Note in Japan there is an excellent, efficient and well priced luggage shipping service, called Takuhaibin Delivery Services (excellent article here). Knowing that, tomorrow, we were travelling by Shinkansen to Nagano and then up to an onsen town in the mountains for two nights, we visited the Lawson convenience store next door to our apartment this morning and shipped our large bags ahead to our accommodation at Kanazawa which we would reach on May 9th (in four days).
Here is an article about luggage in Japan which I used as part of my research and why we shipped our large bags ahead. However, on reflection, the Shinkansen we rode (twice) was not that busy and there was plenty of room for our large bags, unlike the recommendation in that article. However, as you will see over the next few days, we did do a bit of walking with our bags, so we were happy not to have the large bags with us.
When planning your trip to Japan, give this some thought: how much walking will you be doing between accommodation changes? And if you can ship your large bags ahead, it may be worthwhile, as the price is most reasonable.
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