Wednesday 1st May, 2013

Walking tours are a great way of getting under the skin of a place. Rather than jumping from subway station to subway station you can wander (with purpose) from place to place seeing everything that’s on offer. So for Wednesday morning we decided we’d go for a walk.

We started in the Maronouchi area of Tokyo, home to some big buildings and the main Tokyo station – a very different experience during the day than the night. It’s also where you can find the Imperial Palace.

In order to visit the Palace proper you have to seek permission well in advance so we knew we’d only be able to see the East Gardens which are open to the public at all times. Whilst they’re alright they’re nothing on the gardens we’d seen elsewhere in Japan, but they were remarkable for their sense of peace and quiet despite being in the middle of such a massive, and busy city.

Because walking around gardens is hungry work we decided that we’d grab some lunch at Yanaka Ginza, an area famed for its street vendors. To be honest this was a bit of an anticlimax given the way it was written up in the Lonely Planet. Still, we did enjoy various different foods on a stick (CMOT Dibbler style). From there we walked through the Yanaka graveyard (Tokyo’s oldest and largest) where tombs date back hundreds of years and arrived at Ueno Park to grab an ice cream before going into the Tokyo National Museum.

The Tokyo National Museum takes a very selective approach to its exhibits and for me this is a perfect example of how less is more. No doubt there are vast vaults filled with treasures that could be on display but instead there’s a carefully curated selection that provides the narrative and demonstrates the skill and designs of a particular era in Japan’s history.

After a good few hours at the museum we headed back to the hotel and because we were planning to be up before 3am had an early night after a fairly nondescript meal at a nearby Soba joint.

All of our pictures from Tokyo are arranged in this collection on Flickr.