For my last full day in Tokyo, I slept in, had fruit and juice for breakfast, read the paper, had lunch at my favorite diner and made two stops. But first, I had to go back to my hotel room and grab my down vest right after lunch. The temperature had dropped quite a bit overnight. I then went to the Imperial Palace and back again to Shinjuku to have a better look around the shopping and stores areas.
The first stop of the day was to the Imperial Palace. Most of the palace was closed off to the public other than the east gardens area. As the Emperor and his family live at the palace, this is understandable. The place is humungous! I have tried to give a sense of scale in some of the pix I shot. And, this public area is only about one fifth (one sixth?) of the whole thing as far I can make out. Inside this area, it was nice and quiet even though the traffic surrounding the palace was steady. I can only imagine that inside the main palace areas, you probably would not hear the cars at all especially behind the big stone walls.
The pix are of the surrounding streets and then of the publicly accessible parts of the palace itself. There is a fountain at one spot, too.
By the time I made it to Shinjuku, it was kind of colder and spitting rain at times. Some big drops began to fall once in a while, too. I have noticed that when it rains here, it's not torrential. You don't get soaked. It seems to be a steady miserable type of rain. Anyways, the area of Shinjuku where I explored had giant billboards and neon everywhere. Food seemed to me the most prominent advertisements. I was not in the mood to shoot pix in this kind of weather and there were fewer awnings to hide under than Ginza offered the day before. I just drank in the atmosphere instead. It was sensory overload throughout my entire time there. The people were everywhere and huge crowds of them to boot. Signs, billboards, music, talk, all blaring from loudspeakers. Sensory overload. It seems like a blur to me even as I write this.
My worst meal/snack of the trip was here, too. I was looking for a French style bakery, and they seem to be everywhere until you specifically look for one. Then, you can't find one! At least I couldn't find one when I needed it. So, I ended up eating a red bean bun and drinking a soy drink from 711 (yes, they are everywhere here). Mistake! Well, at least it picked up my low blood sugar enough for me to continue my journeys.
And, the last disappointment of the trip was getting back to the hotel only to find my favorite diner had closed for the day already (being a Saturday no doubt they close early). I LOVE the food at this place. It is so amazingly AWESOME. The soba noodles are heaven. I found a place that sold box meals and this food was actually pretty good, too. Not as good as the diner, but still quite good.
Well, that was the week. Too short and totally enjoyable. I'll summarize my thoughts on Japan another day when I have had some time to digest them. Suffice to say for now that I will come back again.
