David had organised a tour of the Imperial Palace for this morning. The tour was free, but you have to book in advance.
Well, I can say it was worth every penny we paid. There were enormous numbers of people involved in running the tours, but unfortunately mostly waving glow sticks around and keeping visitors contained rather than educating anyone. There was one English language guide for around 250 visitors. It was madness, there was no way even ten percent of us could have heard what she had to say. We never got to go inside any of the buildings either, but that was no great loss as most were fairly modern and ugly, replacing ones damaged by wars and fires. There was one old building, an ancient keep dating back to the 1600’s, and I got plenty of photos of that. The gardens were beautiful, though, especially as its Spring and blossom season.
One of the nicest views was after we’d left the tour, on our way out of the grounds to catch the metro.
We went to a very posh hotel after that which was reputed to have the most beautiful gardens. We had lunch at the hotel, in a restaurant overlooking the gardens, thinking it would help us gain access to the gardens themselves so we could wander around after lunch. As it turns out we needn’t have paid the money for overpriced club sandwiches, as entry to the gardens was free and unpoliced. They were pretty but nothing special. You know the sort of thing, a red bridge over a pond full of koi carp.
Then we went on the metro (don’t know if it’s called metro, subway, or underground here?) to have a look at the biggest pedestrian crossing in the world. It was pretty underwhelming TBH, once you’ve crossed it there’s not much more to say.
You often find random queues for things in Tokyo, we found one for a statue of a dog. It looks like it’s good luck to rub its front legs.
I was pretty tired by now so after a brief wander along a shopping street we went back home for a nap, David and Kirsten had more staying power and spent a profitable hour visiting Takashita St, which had all sorts of bizarre shops as well as animal cafes of far greater variety than the cat cafes we have at home, including samoyeds, piglets, and otters.
There was a very impressive thunderstorm in the afternoon so we borrowed the hotel’s umbrellas to walk to the Tokyo Club for dinner. Simon has reciprocal membership thanks to the Wellington Club back at home. We had a very posh meal for a very reasonable price there. The only downside was that it was a French restaurant and the menu was only in French and Japanese. We got there in the end. I should add, we had predinner drinks but there was no drinks menu, and when put on the spot I couldn’t think of the name of a single cocktail I liked. The poor bartender looked absolutely mortified that I wasn’t going to order anything so I had to have a zero alcohol Asahi instead.