Tokyo, Japan – Imperial Palace

The bus stopped at the end of a shady park.  We walked past a statue of a warrior on horseback. Imagine a whole army of these guys attacking your village. Scary.

 The street signs used pictograms to help visitors.  I was really trying to photograph the women with the umbrellas.  The trees provided a lot of shade and some took advantage of the shade and rested under the trees.  The streets are well organized; look closely at the photo and you can see a sign for walking and bicycling.  Huge granite boulders blocked car entrance to the Imperial Palace entrance.  I thought that they had a nice graphical design look and provided extra seating along the way.  You will see more of these in later photos.  The street crossing areas looked the same as in the U.S., with zebra stripes for the crossing area and red and green “don’t walk, walk” symbols.  The only difficult part is that you walk on the left side, as they drive.  I often found myself going against the flow as I walked to the right.

We crossed the street and headed towards the palace.  It sat on a little hill and could be seen through the trees.  It was surrounded by a moat for extra safety, but the moat didn’t keep the tourists away.  Nice stone work, nice iron work, nice moat work.  The arched moat bridge was managed by the palace guards in two guard shacks. 

We walked past the guarded moat bridge and walked to the closest point to the Imperial Palace.  There was yet another moat that would need to be crossed.  But, if those mean looking guys on horseback were attacking, two moats would be better than one, wouldn’t you agree? Anyway, you need to look closely to see a grayish palace on the hill.  It is closed to visitors because the Emperor and his family continue to live in the Palace.

Time to continue our tour.  I was able to take a few more photos and then sprinted to catch up to the group.  This is a nice stop. It is free.