2 hours in Tokyo

We had a great time in Thailand visiting with my brother and seeing the sights but now it is time to go home.  At the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Thailand, Japan Airlines was celebrating its 55th year of service between Tokyo and Bangkok.  They were politely encouraging all passengers to take a photo with the flight attendants dressed in retro attire.

After a long flight with an interesting (?) Japanese breakfast, we arrived at Narita Airport in Japan and cleared through Customs and Immigration quickly.  We had an 8-hour layover, so we figured we had enough time to zip into the city of Tokyo and look around for a couple hours.  Tokyo is about an hour away by train from the airport.  We took the Narita Express to Tokyo station.

When we saw this building from the train window it hit us that we were really in Japan.

It was raining pretty hard when we walked out of Tokyo station -- we were glad that for once we checked the weather ahead of time and packed our umbrellas in the carryons.

 

The Tokyo Station is just across the street from the east gardens of the Imperial Palace, so we used what little time we had to walk around and take a few photos.  This is the Kikyomon Gate, which we discovered is not the visitor's entrance.

The East Gardens stand on the site of the former Edo Castle (built in 1457), but only a few structures -- a keep, a defense house, and two guardhouses -- remain standing.  Most of the other buildings were destroyed by fires in the 17th and 19th centuries. 

The visitor entrance is over by the Ohtemon Gate.  Swans wade in the moat next to the gate.

Here's Kevin at one of the massive wooden doors of the Ohtemon Gate.

This stylized dolphin sculpture was left over from the old Ohtemon gate which was damaged in April 1945 during WWII.  It is believed to date to the late 1600's. 

The Doshin-Bansho guardhouse is where the samurai guards used to be posted to keep watch over the palace grounds.

Here's a close up of the details on the guardhouse roof (and the rain!)

Through the mist in this photo, you can just make out the stone remains of the Tenshudai, which was the main tower or donjon.  It used to be five stories (165 feet) high, but it was destroyed by fire in 1657 and now the foundation is all that is left.

Unfortunately we didn't have much time for exploring, so we really only saw a fraction of the grounds.  I guess we'll just have to come back to Japan sometime in the future to complete the tour!

We made it back to the train station in plenty of time to grab a quick bite before boarding the train back to the airport.  We really enjoyed people watching in the station, and even got to see a girl dressed in Sailor Moon fashion.  Too bad I did not have my camera at the ready!  But she looked a little like this, only with the full pigtail/bun hairstyle as well.

Photo courtesy of e-Bay

Most everyone else we saw was dressed much more conservatively, since it was the middle of a workday.  Here's a typical scene near the ticket machines.

We boarded the train and made it back to the Narita airport, and cleared back through customs/immigration with time to spare.  Next stop, Phoenix!