Meeting The Japanese Royal Family (Almost)!

After inhaling all the calmness i could from the Oasis of the city, it was time for me to venture into my Loney Planet-er final day again. This time around, i am going to meet the Japanese Royal Family! Wee!

So i took the subway to Otemachi where the Imperial Place is and where ancient Japanese royal family used to live. I would say i really made good use of the map which came along with the Lonely Planet book. Money well-spent eh?

The Imperial palace is surrounded by a beautiful pond where the goose and turtle decided to come up close and greet me upon my arrival.

The imperial palace is huge! Upon arrival i was given a token which state the opening and closing time of the imperial palace. I guess this acted as a reminder for guest so that no one will be locked up at the end of the day. Plus, it is free! 

Grand entrance

The imperial symbol

There is a museum in the imperial palace that consist of the items donated by the imperial families when they donated the palace. Well it wasnt my lucky day because it was closed. So ended up i just walked around the palace under the scorching sun. It was so hot that i had to take and gulp in a whole bottle of icy cold water whenever i reached a resting point. At the end of the day, i even got sun tanned and had the spaghetti strap marks.

A long guard house used which could not fit into my camera screen.

It reads - "The Imperial Palace in ancient time"

Ohhh imperial palace in ancient time! I was fascinated! So i spent the next 20 minutes walking under the sun going to the direction, while all the time could not find a single brach to hide under. The path was glittering like diamonds under the sun. Hot!

And then i arrived! Wee! So i quickly walked up the slope and saw the sign - "used to be the imperial palace in ancient time but got burnt down about 200 years ago. No reconstruction was done and hence it is now left with the base of the palace....." What???!!! I wanted to faint and curse! I felt cheated instantly! Anyways i still climbed to the top and snap a photo just for memory sake.

View from the top where the base is. Luckily the view is nice.

After that, i had no mood to continue exploring the next half of the palace and decided to just walked myself to the nearest subway and get back to the hotel. And i guess this ends my "backpacking" trip in Tokyo. 

 Bye bye Tokyo! See you again soon... i hope!