Wed Oct 7, 2026

First full day! The beds weren’t uncomfortable, but they’re firmer than I’m used to. My hips hurt, but walking should help with that. This getting old is for the birds.

JA looks adorable with my day pack.

Breakfast at the hotel sucks, so we ended up getting something from Eggsluts, which is a worldwide chain, but fine for the moment.

Sluttiest egg sandwich I’ve ever had.

We spent entirely too much time figuring out the Suica cards for the subway, but that’s ok. We’re jetlagged to all hell, so the brains aren’t functioning properly. Figured we’d test everything out and visit the free-to-access Imperial Palace grounds.

Lots of gates we aren’t allowed through, but the buildings are pretty at least?

Finally, the way in. First palace here we come!

Really like these rain gutters. Maybe future home inspiration.

These are the samurai guard houses that were built in the 1600s that survived the fires that destroyed everything else.

I really love the care and attention they give their trees. I don’t know what was especially special about this cherry tree, but obviously it’s important. As all trees should be.

Orb weavers every where! Or more specifically, Joro spiders! The webs are huge and these guys are everywhere here.

Sooooo…we walked all this way to see a palace that never got built. Apparently multiple fires took out multiple places here (insert Monty Python quote) and the final ‘palace’ was never built because the Nephew of the Emperor (or something like that) said palaces like that were no longer needed in such peaceful times (aka, he didn’t want to build it), so only the foundation was there. At least it was free?

And full of cool trees and spiders.

I could have probably looked this up before. But this was supposed to be our ‘nothing’ day due to jet lag, so walking around didn’t hurt.

Another building that samurai were housed in. JA, of course, had to duck.

Look at this cool tree! It’s huge and the canopy is expansive! A Cinnamoum camphora. It was just lovely to admire.

Citrus maxima – huge pomelos.

Random grave marker.

So. Today was supposed to be a rest day. But we ended up scoring night time Shibuya Sky tickets and figured what the heck. Bit first, gotta pay respects to Hachiko.

If you get a chance to get tickets to Shibuya Sky, I highly recommend it. We thought it was just going to be a rooftop observatory of the city, but it was a whole experience. Very well done and super, super cool. Lights off into the distance, as far as we could possibly see. It really did a great job of overwhelming us with the sheer expanse of the city.

And of course they have a bar.

We’re fading pretty hard here, spent maybe an hour on top of Tokyo. Jet lag is killing us, so we call it a night here and head back to the hotel.

<a href=”https://awanderingjill.com/?page_id=5844“>Back to Tokyo Travel Day</a>

<a href=”https://awanderingjill.com/?page_id=5910“>Tokyo – Day 2</a>