...then of the gate and parts of the interior walls once we were inside...
The morning target this time was the East Garden of the Imperial
Palace. This is the only part of the Imperial
Palace grounds that is open to the public daily. The grounds of the
Palace proper are open to the public only a
couple of days each year.
We took the train to Tokyo station and had to wait for a few minutes
before the gates opened -- we were still
partially on California time and got going pretty early -- so I took a
few pictures of the external moat...
...then of the gate and parts of the interior walls once we were
inside...
...then of the gathering of some sort of gardening club for the
elderly, all dressed in white and and very well protected against
the sun being told who knows what about various trees by some expert...
... then of various parts of the grounds, including a rather heavy
compass rose...
...then of the inner moat and wall...
...of a pond with koi and blossoming cherries...
...of the traditional tile work of one of the sheds...
...of the (modern, obviously) postal box...
...of the gate again...
...of the Ote-mon gate we used to enter the garden...
... and a panoramic of the Ote-mon gate we used (on the right) and
another gate (Kykio-mon, on the
left) to finish the visit off.
We then walked to Tokyo station...
... where these folks were still handing white roses -- we got one
when we got off the train to see the Palace
garden and two more before boarding the train after the visit.
We then took the train to Ebisu, where we had a midmorning snack of
"onigiri" and walked around the Ebisu and
Daikonyama areas (sorry, no pictures...) before taking the train again
to Shibuya.
In Shibuya we stopped to see if our old friend Hachiko had had a
restful night and take a fresh set of pictures,
including one of an unknown Japanese kid that showed us how to pose.
Not only was Hachiko there, but the crowd was there as well. I did
not ask any them if they had spent the night
walking around there or not. Some of them looked like they had.
After walking around, eating (cheap curry), and shopping (Loft, Tokyu
Hands again, more department stores)
we started the walk towards Harajuku. First we saw the Hachiko bus
(note Hachiko's ears, right erect, left
floppy, just as in the statue) that runs between Daikonyama and Shibuya
and that we could have taken instead
of the train if we had known of its existence when we were in
Daikonyama...
...then this rather garish carillon (for lack of a better name) that I
had seen in action once before...
...and a mile or so later we were in Takeshita street, along with a few
thousand of weirdly attired
teens and preteens that I did not have the guts to photograph.
We then walked towards Omotesando, passing by the Dior building that I
had photographed before
at night for May's daughter and that I photographed again during the
day...
...passing by a fence with pockets to help the ivy planted in the
pockets cover it faster...
...and by a store named with my brother-in-law's knickname.
At Omotesando we (or I, to be more precise) ran out of gas and we took
the train to the hotel
even though we planned to return there for dinner.
After charging the batteries at the hotel for 90 minutes or so, we
returned to Omote-sando for
dinner at a chicken restaurant where English is almost entirely
unknown. With the help of
flapping arms (wings) and a few pictures in the menu, we managed to
order stuff we liked but
then I got cocky and ended up ordering fried chicken livers when I
intended to order more wings...
The side street where the restaurant is also features a number of very
trendy shops of local
designers. This was one of them.
From Omotesando we walked back to the hotel along Aoyama-dori --
another 2Km in the odometer.