Imperial Palace and Shinjuku

After leaving Maruzen, the rain had stopped, so we walked over to the Imperial Palace area, “to see what we could see”. Turns out, one needs a special reservation to visit the inside public areas of the palace grounds, and those requests must be made months in advance.

We were permitted to walk some of the grounds. The palace area is huge, a green oasis in the middle of Tokyo. We walked across the outer and inner water filled moats, viewed a few massive guard towers, and made our way to the main entry gate, guarded by two sentries.

And that was it!. Trees, green grass, spacious marching grounds and a few moats.

Oh well, let’s venture over to Shinjuku, and boy are we glad we did.

“Grey skies are gonna clear up, so put on a happy face!”

Mike had recalled that there is a free viewing area atop one of the government buildings near the Shinjuku station, so we headed there. But first a long walk back to the Tokyo train station.

We boarded a train to take us to the Tokyo Government Building complex in Shinjuku. This is where the skyscrapers cluster in the city's west side. Atop one of them is a free observation deck, with a 360 view of Tokyo. We got there as the sun was about to set.

After we were done checking out the views, we discovered that there was a cafe at the top that was about to open. We were the first to be seated, and got two seats at the bar, with a great view. We ordered drinks and a few appetizers, to tide us over until dinner.

After drinks and snacks, we descended the tower, and decided to visit our automated sushi delivery restaurant again for a late dinner. Just took the train to Shibuya, walked over to the restaurant taking a different route, and upon reaching the restaurant, only had a short wait.