Imperial Palace Gardens

March 19th--After our tour of the Imperial Palace, Raymond had to get back home to get some homework done before his class that afternoon.  I wasn't ready to go home yet, and wanted to walk over to Yasukuni Shrine and check out the gardens there.  We hadn't been able to see them when we visited in January because we spent so much time there that the kids were done before the adults were.  The kids decided which parent they went with--Raymond took Audra, Nathan, and Christopher home while I took Caitlin, Tayla, Logan and Kirstina with me.

We said good-bye to each other and parted ways.  The kids and I walked around the moat for the Imperial Palace, heading over to Yasukuni Shrine.  Along the way, we saw this bridge. 

It was pretty, so we took a picture of it...wondering what it was for.
As we approached it, we realized that this was the entrance for the Imperial Gardens!  We were wanting to go through the gardens, and were disappointed that it wasn't a part of the tour.  The gardens that are a part of the private Imperial residence are only open to the public on January 2nd and December 23rd, so we assumed that those gardens were the extent of the Imperial Gardens on the palace grounds and we wouldn't be able to see them.  I guess we needed to research the palace grounds a little better!  To come across this was sheer luck--and we felt bad that Raymond and the rest of the kids had gone home and would miss it!

We discovered that the EAST Imperial Palace Grounds are open to the public almost all the time, and we decided we had better go through it first and hit the Yasukuni gardens next. 

After climbing a small hill and rounding a corner, we came upon a plum blossom orchard.

Plum blossoms are so pretty at this time of year when hardly anything else is in bloom.  Unfortunately, the pictures of them don't ever seem to do them justice.  They are much prettier in person. 

We found the Tokagakudo Music Hall which was built in 1966 on the occasion of Empress Kojun's 60th birthday.  She was a great lover of classical music.  The building is unique.  It is built in an octagon and the shape of its roof symbolizes clematis petals.  Every exterior wall is covered with mosaic art made from colorful tiles.  A pair of traditional Japanese dolls are decorated on top of the roof in place of gargoyles.

Next, we walked over to this structure.  This is the Tenshudai, which are the remains of the main keep.  Remember that the main keep burned down and was never rebuilt, which then made Fujimi-yagura the main watch tower?  This is the foundation for the original main keep.  It was completed in 1607.  It was built it was so tall that it was thought that it was the greatest castle tower in all of Japan.  Unfortunately, it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1657.  Only the stone foundation remains.

You can walk up to the top of the foundation remains and see a view of the East Imperial Gardens.

We walked around the pathways that meander around the gardens.  There are blossoms on one tree and bamboo in the background of this picture.

We saw some orange trees the were covered to protect against frost.  We saw this in Kyoto a lot, and it looks like they are worried about frost here in Tokyo as well. 

Because the East Imperial Gardens are where most of the former Edo Castle used to be, we came upon three different guardhouses that were used to protect the grounds.  Samurai men used to live in this guardhouses. 

This is called the O-bashi Guardhouse, and was much smaller than the other two.  The other two guardhouses would house around 100 samurai.  This one was the last defense against would-be attackers and the only samurai who worked and lived here were considered the best of the best.

A lone and beautiful lamp post.

We walked around the whole East Imperial Garden complex, but if we are honest, we were disappointed.  The only part we really enjoyed was the plum orchard.  The rest of the gardens were still in their winter state and not that impressive.  We wish we could come and explore the grounds around the end of May when the irises, along with many other flowers, would be in bloom!  At that time, the grass would be green as well, which would help make it pretty.
Because only half of the family was able to explore these grounds and it just wasn't the right time of year to see flowers in bloom, we will just have to try to squeeze in another trip here before we leave.  That time is coming quickly, however, and we still have much to see before we leave.  Oh, I hope we can get the gardens in!  I know this place could be beautiful, it just has to warm up a little bit more!

After we left the Imperial Garden, our feet hurt and the rain that had been threatening to come all day began to make itself known.  We would have pressed on and gone onto Yasukuni Shrine to see the gardens there like we had originally set out to do, but since we had Kirstina, we decided that we had better head home so that she wasn't out in the rain.