Now this is a story of stupidity, if ever there was one. I met someone at breakfast this morning, and we spent the whole day walking around the Imperial Palace grounds. Upon the completion of the day, she bought me dinner, to which I vowed to repay her with a drink or two. She was australian, and although she was a dancer and therefore quite keen on health, her natural heritage kicked in and a *possible* drink later today was arranged. However, this was an extremely tentative arrangement. So I took her name, saying 'I'll add you to facebook, and I'll send you the pictures from today over,' (she forgot her camera.) So I wrote her extremely complicated name down on my phone and we parted ways. Now, upon my return to the hostel, I find that my phone has not saved her name, and it has in fact deleted all the notes I've placed onto it... This is really frigging annoying...
So it's also worth noting that the imperial palace itself is only open to tour groups once every fortnight, with extremely limited availability, and during the emperors birthday, so you can only walk around the grounds themselves. We knew this, but were amazed at how heavily guarded the actual palace is! You can't even see it, because of all the trees. That was a bit disappointing.
So after that, this unnamed girl wanted to shop for some things, to take back home I believe. So we had a quick look through some stores, oh I forgot to mention, THIS IS AFTER SHE BOUGHT ME DINNER, shit I feel like an ass now... So yeah I have some funny pictures of products that are, apparently, normal over here...
Let's go pictures let's go!
The style of blockwork here is prevalent throughout, and isn't supported by cement or any kind of fixing. The walls range from sitting height, up to about 30 metres high, overlooking the moats that surround the place. Most medieval castle and surrounds back home are quite cramped, with room enough for a few peasants and a bit of land, but this particular place stretches forever. I doubt any peons were allowed inside during its' heyday, but there is a lot of room inside now, it's like a park.
You'll notice that most of these pictures have the old style about them, but then a socking great skyscraper in the background. That is pretty much Tokyo in a nutshell, it has about five large park areas, kind of like London, that are then surrounded by immense city structures.
This was the old guard barracks. Interestingly the whole place was built around the 1600's, so by most standards that's not particularly old. Then again, Tokyo wasn't the capital until recently, so maybe this has something to do with it? Maybe the old palace grounds were in Kyoto.
This is the head honcho of the royal guards' abode. These stylised 'life size' bonsai are everywhere, and must take a long time, even now, to train and upkeep.
This is one of only three original guard houses within the grounds. They were strategically placed around the grounds, on the walls overlooking the interior grounds. What you can't see from this photo is the fifty foot drop on the ledge this thing is overlooking, into the moat. Although there were around 18 or 19 of these placed around the perimeter, that leaves a huge amount of space beetween each. Regular patrols and, presumably, fast horses would have been necessary for constant surveilance. What you can't see from these pictures is the constant elevation change, throughout the grounds. It's a giant basin, basically, with sheer drops on the outside. I seriously doubt this was naturally a basin in the middle of Tokyo, so there must have been a gargantuan amount of effort in digging this into shape at some stage.
Another shot of the guardhouse.
This structure on the left has an interesting story. They built this base, and then on top, built some kind of pagoda. It took thirty years to build, and got burned down within twenty. How annoying is that!
Another thing I noticed about their wall buildind technique, is that the corner pieces
always lean down. Look at the white block on the left. That block is essentially leaning into the rest of the wall, lending the corner, which is already the strongest point of the wall, extra solidity. The exterior walls are constructed in much the same way. The blocks in the middle of the wall, comprising most of the surface would then presumably be forced together by the weight of the
massive corner blocks, as well as from those above. They don't slope in any manner, which is worth noting, considering these walls can be 20 feet thick on the exterior, and substantially more at the base. They all slope inwards, as you look upwards, like a dam. Basically you would need a meteorite to knock these down; I can't see any kind of catapult breaking these walls.
These particular stones were all scratched in this way, in a very regular pattern. I can't see them having used machine cutting tools of any kind 400 years ago, but I also can't see why they'd have scratch marks on them like this. Then again, the Chinese had movable print thousands of years ago, so maybe the Japanese stole JCB digger technology from them during one of their crusades.
A close-up of the rocks. They look kind of haphazard, but it works. Wabi-sabi at its finest!
This is at the top of the structure that got burned down, looking out to the city beyond.
This is 180 degrees to the other picture.
This is one of those bonsai style fully grown trees that has found purchased on this plateau, and is currently trying to escape over the edge. I don't know whether it's looked over there, but it's a helluva long way down...
Toodays unknown travel buddy said these particular stones looked evil, because of the black streaks running through them. I think this evil thing might be true... Afterall the building on top of here did burn down soon after it was built!
Notice how the ends slope down towards the middle section. And also notice the bonsai style tree gamely escaping the top!
Guess this plant! The grounds had all the plant names written on little sticks in the ground, but they were in latin and Japanese only, so I didn't know any of them. They were also too small to photograph because the focal length of my camera is measured in timezones, not mm.
Look at the width of that moat! I don't know how deep it is either, but this place is essentially impenetrable. The walls are finished to a nicety, so only spiderman, and that french climber who calls himself spiderman would be able to climb it. Then stick a couple of swords, a shield and some armour on them, and laugh as they get very wet.
This is the first half, the second half will probably happen tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I fall asleep.
This is one of the entrances to the grounds, built upon the giant wall that surrounds the city.
These photos all kind of look the same I guess... There's a ton of green in the garden at the moment, but not so many flowers. I think we were a bit late for that kind of thing.
The views along the straight lines created by the walls are tailor made for this city, with its' massive skyscrapers and metropolitan skyline. Unfortunately I don't think any camera in the world is able to capture that.
There were some nice palm tree type things around the place, which struck me as odd but I guess it shouldn't have; considering anywhere this hot is probably capable of growing anything they might want to, up to and including cactii. It might need an umbrella though...
This is my attempt at an artsy fartsy photo. These cool little secluded places were all over the place. I went for the light sky, versus dark building. I don't know why.
This sums up Tokyo. Park+gravity defying skyscrapers = a strange combination. Whether it's good or bad, works or doesn't is up to you.
Another shot of the hidden/not so hidden building. I captured it from all four sides, but one of them got away so you'll only see it from three on here.
This is probably one of my favourite shots of this particular building. It's like this from almost every angle when you actually see it up close, but capturing the ease with which it sits in the landscape on camera is exceptionally difficult. They always make things tricky over here.
This is looking down upon the park. The foreground is a little rampant and someone snuck a tree into the middle of the photo when I wasn't looking, but overall it looks nice.
This is just a little further along. This spring feeds into the main lake area. I can't see it being natural due to the nature of the site, and its location within Tokyo, but I couldn't hear a pump or any kind of mechanisation so the illusion is flawless. They do the running water thing really well over here.
The water isn't very clear but the fish in here have wings. I think I might have snapped one of them.
Make your own red bull jokes. They move like normal carp though, so despite the aeronautical design these things will only fly onto dishes across the nation.
Bamboo forest. No pandas allowed.
The demon fish.
Someone asked me if people dress like this normally, in every day life. The answer is here, at four pm on a random station with no scheduled costume party thing going on... Yes they are all completely nuts.
Onto the funny photos. I do not know what the balls are for in the blusher... Anyone out there know?
The
MOST amazing toast holder ever. I was laughing for a long time after seeing this. There's this whole gothic obsession over here at the moment, that is either presumably five years behind us, or five years ahead; thinking cyclically.
This is like bath salts, advertised for women with a practically naked woman in a suggestive pose on the front? Isn't that the wrong way round? This also made me laugh.
Ok so this is tipex or correction fluid, BUT IT HAS A TOOTHBRUSH AND TOOTHPASTE ON THE FRONT. I want to see the advert where a small child puts this stuff on his toothpaste and realises it's not toothpaste.
This picture is amazing. Firstly the description of the item. I'm going to use marketing speak, to try and sell this product to you.
Tired of the boring, tiring commute from the office to your house? Then try our new
pino, for those who work too hard and tooo long to bother with trains. Simply take our product from the convenient carry case, slide one or both arms into the comfortable rests, AND SLEEP AT YOUR DESK! Arrive to work before even your boss does with the new
pino!
Holy sweet jesus. This product actually exists. I am now not surprised by the number of suicides there are here every year.
Updated! Done!
