Another long day - 9 hours of walking around in the Capital of the country of the Rising Sun.
Our day started off around the imperial palace, which we got to see a corner of! The imperial palace is secluded in a central garden and only 3 times a year can the general public enter the garden and see the emperor say a few words. The site is beautiful though and provides for a peaceful stroll in the middle of Tokyo urban mayhem.
Close to the imperial gardens are the main federal government offices. The Diet (Japanese parliament) is also there, but my friend and I thought that the building is not representative of Japan at all.
Next we visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine which is about 30 minutes walking distance from the Diet (kokkai). This shrine was repeatedly in the international media when former MP Junichiro Koizumi paid regular visits during holidays. The problem is that 16 enshrined soldiers are people who are accused of crimes against humanity because of their atrocious crimes during the war. This enrages China and Korea and marred the relationship between those countries.
The picture at the top with the airplane was taken at Yasukuni shrine, and this is the model of plane that was used for kamikaze during WWII.
Later that day we visited Roppongi, a district known to have a lot of expats and some violence. There are two parts to Roppongi: the party area with many overpriced clubs and restaurants, and then the administrative area with high rise buildings, where you feel like you are projected into the future.. also with overpriced restaurants. We were hopping to find a nice place to have dinner here, but we gave up and went to Shinjuku to have dinner because we were tired of eating at Wendy's.
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