The East Gardens of the Imperial Palace of Japan…distinct from THE Imperial Gardens because those are immediately around the current Palace, and are off-limits. And what you do get to see is utterly magnificent, and huge — I was there nearly three hours and didn’t see everything.
The entrance to the Gardens.
The gardens are in layers. Inside this wall (surrounded by a moat) is layer 2, with its own lawns and trees. There are 3 sets of wall and moats like this.
A guardhouse just inside the south gate. It was manned by the crème de la crème of samurai.
See? Another moat!
This marks the site of the corridor in which one lord insulted another, leading to an execution, and the revenge of the 47 Ronin.
City? What city?
There’s only bamboo!
Oh, THERE.
Of COURSE the palace has its own orange grove.
A mysterious stone opening…in the middle of what used to the shogun’s palace. Nothing AT ALL to see here.
Imagine that this entire area was covered in sumptuous building.
This was the Honmaru Goten Palace of the Shogunate, until everything burned down in 1877.
