Making it Up As I Go

Today after school was done we ventured out to Tokyo station and the Imperial Palace. I’ve been wanting to go to the Imperial Palace since we first came here, but it never happened, and then when we knew we were moving here I figured we’d have plenty of time, and here we are. As we got out of the station it started drizzling, and we decided to press on regardless (it had taken us about 45 minutes to get there, and the girls were excited about seeing the palace- even though you can’t really).  We walked a bit around the palace grounds, and intended to go to the gardens there, but they were closed because yesterday was a holiday. Boo. Tiny’s legs were tired, so we hit a bookstore by the station, grabbed some sandwiches at a little combini (convenience store) and headed back home. But I took some pictures (of course I did) so here you go.

Tokyo station is the busiest station in Japan as far as trains traveling through it, and the fifth busiest in terms of people traveling through it per day. It has two sides, and this side has a brick facade that was originally built between 1908 and 1914.  It’s super long- the picture below is the facade one direction-

and the other.  And it even turns a corner and there’s more.

I couldn’t get all of it in one shot.

Around the palace grounds. You can’t go inside the walls, a fact Z was quite offended about. There is a bus tour that you can take that goes inside and around a little, and you have to show your passports and everything so they know you’re legit. Perhaps we’ll do that at some point. We only walked around for about 10 minutes, there’s MUCH more to see. We will go back on a less rainy, less tired leg day.

This is inside the Tokyo station, and a perfect example of why it’s a good idea to take small people with you when you travel- I would have totally missed this if Tiny hadn’t yelled, “LOOK AT THAT!”