Tokyo D'Esposito:: Tokyo Weekend, Part Two

one lone swan in the moat

Before we took a rest Saturday afternoon we made one more stop across the street from our hotel. We walked over to the Imperial Palace gardens (past the very palace-like moat and stone wall) and took some photos. The palace is where the Emperor and Empress of Japan (who are adorable, btw) live with their family. You can't go in the palace or even close to it, but you can walk through the extensive gardens surrounding it. I think on a couple of days in the year (New Years and the Emperor's birthday, maybe?) you can go closer than usual---those are popular days for visits.

After some picture-taking we headed back to the hotel for awhile. Then we went back to Naka-Meguro to try to get some of that elusive Mexican food. Fortunately we enjoyed walking through the area (since we did it several times) because it was quaint and everything stayed open really late. The streets were lined with hat shops, vegetable stands, clothes boutiques, tiny restaurants, tiny drugstores and antique shops. Finally, we managed to get into the hopping Junkadelic for some burritos and Coronas. It was pretty good...not the quality of Mexican food you find in South Carolina but it hit the spot.

One thing I was looking forward to was seeing Tokyo all lit up at night like you see in pictures. However, once it got dark we realized we were going to be disappointed. Since the goverment is asking everyone to save energy only the most necessary lights are kept on at night. So it's not all that spectacular, although we were staying in the quieter Chiyoda area rather than some of the hotspots which may have made a difference. But we noticed a lot of Christmas-type lights and bare bulbs on the streets of Naka-Meguro that weren't lit up either. Hopefully we'll be here long enough to see everything light back up again.

The next morning, because of a little incident involving Chad's iPhone the previous night, we headed to the cell phone store in Shibuya. We didn't spend much time there because we were exhausted and on a mission but I took a few photos. Shibuya stood out to me because the streets were tree-lined.....some articles you read say it's a financial district and others say it's a party town. Who knows.....after Chad finished at the cell phone store we hopped on the subway and headed back home. But....I think we're making a trip to Ginza next weekend (about that ~~dang~~ phone) so check back!