MM4.Travel

Tokyo – Day Two

Tuesday 19 May

Akihabara

We are staying in Akihabara or “Electric Town”, which is a ten minute tube ride from Tokyo Station. It’s known for electronics & anime.

Akihabara Crossing just down from our hotel.

This is called a *gap house*, an older narrow house or shop, which has survived while larger buildings have been built around it.

Imperial Palace Gardens

We walked from Akihabara through Kanda to the Palace Gardens in Chiyoda. The Palace grounds are massive with most of it still being used as the official residence for the Emperor. It was also blisteringly hot.

This is the O-Bansho Guard House inside the walls of what was Edo Castle.

This is the Fujimi-yagura Tower, and dates to 1659, this is where the 47 Rōnin assassinated the killer of their retainer.

Tokyo Central Station

From the palace gardens we headed to the Tokyo Station, it was built between 1908-14, and was heavily damaged during the war. It was finally restored in 2012. The station has an amazing department store within it, and on the lower level has an incredible food court. It also has an amazing range of fruit and veg.

One of the quirks of Japan is that you don’t eat at the food court, you have to find a park or somewhere like that to eat. There are also no public rubbish bins, so you have to carry the rubbish back to your hotel. Definitely a different way of doing things, but it does seem to keep everything clean, which is impressive in a city of 37 million people.