Day 7 - A full day visiting downtown Tokyo

June 25, 2019

Today, Sunday, was our only full day off to explore so a group of us (Wendy, Kim, Anthea, Osvaldo, Henk and I) made plan and headed out at 8:00 a.m. to begin our day. Prepare yourselves...it was a long and busy day.

We had a long list of places to visit since we wanted to cram in as much as possible. First stop, Nippon Budokan to see some competitive judo. As you can imagine in a city of over 13 million people, the train system is complicated and challenging but we navigated it all like champs.

We took two trains to downtown Tokyo and made our way to Nippon Budokan.

So many things to notice as we made our way from the train station. Nippon Budokan was built on the grounds of the Imperial Palace and hosts events like this competitive judo event. It was built for the 1964 Olympics and is now a sports arena and music venue. Because it is located on the grounds of the palace, you have to enter through a gate.

Henk, who is from the Netherlands, was the one who knew about all of this and led us to this event.

This was a really cool way to begin our day in Tokyo! I definitely need to learn more about judo.

Next stop, the Imperial Palace and Gardens...

We walked into the park from the top and exited through the Otemachi gate on the right.

We meandered through beautiful grounds on our way through the massive park.

Look at this cool phone booth!

Here we are coming upon the huge stone walls and moat that surrounds the grounds.

Once we walked through the gate and passed the security checkpoint, we came upon buildings and land around the Imperial Palace, which is the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. The park covers 1.3 square miles and includes gardens, museums and historical ruins. The palace inner grounds are not open to the public but you can explore the rest of the land free of charge.

The Tokagakudo Concert Hall above was designed to resemble a clematis flower and was built in 1966 to commemorate the 60th birthday of Empress Kojun, who was a great lover of classical music.

Just a itty bitty storage building built into the hill.

I love the juxtaposition of old and new Japan.

I know the palace is white and along the moat but I'm not sure if this is it.

Making our way out the east gate...next stop Tokyo Tower!

It's hard to miss the tower in the distance since it is the 2nd tallest structure in Japan and is a communication and observation tower. As you can probably tell, it was modeled after the Eiffel Tower and is almost 1,100 feet tall. There are two observation decks and we just went up to the first level.

I went around the entire level to take pictures of the view. Wow! Again, the blending of old Japan, like the shrine below, with the new is breathtaking!

You can see Tokyo Bay and the Rainbow Bridge in the distance.

Below you can see a huge cemetery surrounded by buildings.

I'm so glad we took the time to go up to the observation deck to capture these images.

After a very long walk to find a place for lunch, we headed to the Tsukiji Fish Market. This is the famous wholesale fish market where they have those crazy tuna auctions. What I didn't know, until today, is that the market closed a short while ago and moved to a larger, new and improved site in Toyosu, about 2 km east of this location. What we got to see is the Tsukiji outer market with all the shops and restaurants offering many foods and items.

The streets were filled with locals and tourists. Above you can see the wagu beef being seared to your liking.

Fresh roe, tuna slices and sea urchin are some of the many offerings.

I couldn't believe how relatively inexpensive the fresh fish was.

We walked from the fish market up to Ginza, just to take a look at Tokyo's most upscale shopping and entertainment area.

One square meter of land in Ginza is worth more than 10 million yen (about $100,000). I'm not sure what I was expecting but I was hoping for more small shops and cool places to stop. This was more like Beverly Hills on steroids alongside massive shopping malls. We were only a few minutes in before we decided to stop at Iron Fairies for a cocktail. We needed a break from all of the walking!

This was a fun stop to make (recommended by my friend Richard). It's a funky, comfortable little bar where you can have a great cocktail surrounded by little iron fairies and fairy dust.

Even the water they serve is magical. It comes with a little container of liquid you pour into the class and it turns the water from blue to purple. Osvaldo was convinced it was a roofie.

We decided we had enough for the day and to make our way back via Shinjuku, the busiest train station in the world. What were we thinking!? Shinjuku is a major shopping area outside of downtown Tokyo.

As you can tell, the place was hopping. This is the image many people have when they think of Tokyo and this area didn't disappoint.

It was a bit much for someone who doesn't love huge crowds and shopping. Even Godzilla wasn't happy!

Run for your life!!

While colorful and eye-catching, I had had enough for the day. At this point we had been on the road for about 11 hours with over 8 miles of walking and we still had to get back on the train to get to Kokubungi.