Well, this is our last full day in Japan! It seems like the trip is quickly coming to a close… But we still have a couple of days left to enjoy this extreme heat. At least Japan knows that it is extremely hot and tries to cool you down however possible. Like this cooling system in front of Tokyo Station.

There is water continuously running over the square to lower the temperature to a bearable level. It was quite interesting. There were signs explaining that it is 5 mm deep and using tap water that is not suitable to drink. Pretty smart, and it may have even worked. The below cooling system was more obvious though.

All of this to go to the Imperial Palace. Until now we have been walking in the shade of buildings surrounded by these nice water-cooling systems. Our goal…? Anything but cooled. Wide open to the sun, but well worth it. (But there are signs warning you to watch for heat stroke and pointing towards air conditioned buildings).

You can’t actually go into the Imperial Palace (we think) so everyone is just taking pictures from the outside. It’s pretty awesome though. The lawns and trees look like they were groomed to perfection, which they likely were over many, many years. The first picture below is of the Seimon Ironbridge. Everyone came to this corner and posed in front of this bridge. Why? We are not sure. If you have any hints or information, we would love to hear it! 

Although you can’t enter the Imperial Palace, you can enter the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace, and it is well worth it. We would definitely recommend it. To get in you must pass through the Ote-mon Gate. They’re actually two gates at right angles created specially to trap invading forces between both gates, allowing the security team of the emperor to defend the people inside. Now we used it as a spot for a quick picture. The original gate was destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt in 1967. It is thought that the original gate dated from at least 1657.

Although the gardens are huge with lots of beautiful things to look at, the most interesting for us was this little monument. It commemorates the place that Asano Takumi-no-kami (a feudal lord) attacked Kira Kozuke-no-suke (a high ranking official) in 1701. Although the attack was unsuccessful, Asano was ordered to commit seppuku (honourable suicide). His subjects would later accomplish what their master had wanted and kill Kira. This is where the story of the 47 ronins begins. We will definitely try to make it to the temple where they are buried in the southern part of Tokyo. If not, there have been tons of movies, TV dramas, and novels written about the 47 ronins.

After the gardens we returned to Tokyo Station to go find our next tourist site. We got off at the right station… but we had no idea how to get there. We even had maps. One slight problem… the map didn’t indicate the height of what we were after. All of a sudden we had to make a choice. Do we stay at street level or go up a few floors on some elevated walkways? We decided we could have a better vantage point if we went up a few floors. Good thing we did!

We found our goal, the Giant Ghibli Clock. To be completely honest we were a little stressed to get here. We read that the clock comes to life four times a day; noon, 3 pm, 6 pm, and 8 pm. If everything went perfectly, we would make it for the 8 pm show. We did not make it. BUT the clock was under maintenance, so we had no chance anyway. A small consolation. It would have been cool to see this giant cuckoo clock in action! If you aren’t familiar with Studio Ghibli, it is a movie studio that created some of the most iconic anime movies around. We grew up watching lots of these movies, so we just had to come. Stuff relating to Studio Ghibli is everywhere in Japan.

While here there was also a meet and greet happening below us at street level. From what we could tell they were likely voice actors from a new anime movie, as that’s what the background looked like. We couldn’t take any pictures as there was security around and signs everywhere (even a few levels up where we were) forbidding all photography. It reminded us of the music video we saw being filmed in Vladivostok.

Well, as you can tell from the dark picture, it was getting pretty late. So we decided to walk around the neighbourhood a little bit since it had a lot of bright lights and we had no idea where we were. After just starting our walk, these guys drove by. Who doesn’t love Mario Kart?

We quickly found out that we were in Ginza district of Tokyo. Without needing to do any research, we quickly realized that this is the upscale shopping district. All of the most expensive brands you can think of were here. We had no idea, we just followed the lights.

We finally got to the point where we were starting to get tired… but the map said we were directly between the Shinbashi station (where we had gotten off) and Tokyo Station. So we walked a little further. Then we saw our ticket back to the hotel.

And that was that. After a long, hot day of walking it was back to our hotel to sleep in Japan one last time! Goodnight from Tokyo! And we got our ticket out of the country! Keep reading to find out!