On my last day in Tokyo, we finally made it to the Imperial Palace. Prior to that we had learned the hard way that the palace is closed on Mondays and that it is closed on Fridays. Fortunately, it is open on Sundays.

There were lovely gardens...

...with koi...

...and proper stone pagodas.

This was purported to be a tea house, but it was not in operation as far as we could tell.

The whole business was surrounded by a formidable moat.

And the walls, in general, were taken to looming.

After the whirlwind tour of the palace grounds (mere mortals are not allowed to see the actual palace), I hopped on the subway, wandered lost through the train station at Ueno, finally located the train back to the airport (cleverly stationed down the street and around the corner), and made the magical time warped journey back to the states wherein I arrived before I left and was once again viciously jet lagged.

Before I return you to your regularly scheduled web browsing, I wanted to slip in this picture of a lovely little house that I stumbled across while wandering lost in the back streets near Sensoji temple.

In the words of the (well trained) local fauna, "So long and thanks for all the nuts."

index | prev

©2002 michael bayne  <mdb@samskivert.com>