Autumn holiday in Japan (10th-24th Nov): Koukyo (皇居)

All my life, I lived in Tokyo (till age of 18), I don't remember I ever went to Koukyo (皇居). It's the place Japanese royals live. So, I decided it was time to pay a visit to have a look as I was in Tokyo visiting my family, becoming a tourist.

On 14th of Nov, as my family suggested, we got on Yamanote line (山手線）to Tokyo station (東京駅), it was about 20-25mins from Ootsuka station where my family lived. Tokyo station was a big one with old style building and recently refurbished. 

I remember when I was a school, about 17years old, I used to have a little job selling Japanese sweets in one of shops in the station, which wasn't there anymore. Now I look back, I did have a few after school jobs, and actually we weren't allowed to do any of them. I'm not sure how I spent the money and what, I got no memory.....

Anyway, it was easy to find the way to Koukyo, just straight on from the station (get out Marunouchi chuuouguchi 丸の内-中央口). Across the bridge, already we were standing a part of Koukyo. We just walked round there, following some tourists, watching them taking photos.... I thought "Where is the garden?" Then we saw people walking to the right along the water, so we followed. Then saw sign, looked promising....

Gate to the Koukyo

Japanese post box

When we went in, we were given tokens to keep and kept till we went out. It was nice park, due to sunny day, lots of people were chilling out on the grass. We sat and had our snack watching people.

This Imperial palace used to be home to Japanese shogun (Tokugawa shogun, very powerful shogun). They moved here on the Edo period from Kyoto after more than1000years which was capital of Japan. I didn't see Edo castle, but there was some remains. Still impressed me how people in old days built this massive structure. They didn't have huge heavy machinery!

Guarding house

Huge stone foundation

 As we walked through the park/ garden, we found...some fruits! they were called "dai dai"... I thought they were edible, so we picked a few. They were really hard, we thought they were not ready. But, apparently, they are not used as eating, dried and used in medicine for digestion. If the fruits are not picked, they last on the tree for several years.... In spring, they turn back to green.... I now started feeling really guilty picking them... How naughty of us! We didn't eat them while we were in Japan, left them for my parents... ☹☹☹

Daidai: bitter orange

Look very pretty!

Just across road from the huge foundation, we found weired building. This was built for emperor's music hall. I am very sorry to say, I didn't like it, why couldn't they build nice Japanesy style??? To me, it looked really out of place. Everywhere else in the park was very zen like, but this....... blob of concrete.....

Emperor's music hall

Old and New

Oh, before we went into the Koukyo, we walked round there, and saw famous "Sakuradamon (桜田門)".  This what happened: " The Sakuradamon Incident (桜田門外の変 Sakuradamon-gai no Hen, or 桜田門の変 Sakuradamon no Hen) was the assassination of Japanese Chief Minister (Tairo) Ii Naosuke (1815–1860) on 24 March 1860 by rōnin samurai of the Mito Domain, outside the Sakurada Gate of Edo Castle."

Sakuradamon

Yet again, we had lovely warm day out. Tokyo doesn't have much greens, so it's nice to visit place where we can sit down on the grass, watching sky and sound of trees and leaves. Where shall we go next? Meiji Jingu (明治神宮)!