Exploring on foot

Today we headed to the Imperial Palace, a walkable distance from our hostel. We decided to spend the day walking to all the attractions we wanted to see to get some exercise and save money on buses. The start of the palace grounds is about 15 minutes away and we knew from past experience not to expect seeing the actual palace. The grounds are huge; 1.3km by 0.7km in a perfect rectangle shape. Everything, including the streets, are very geometric block-patterns of rectangles here. We explored the start of the garden including a small stream and wandered up to the top part of the grounds. It was lovely to actually see some cherry blossoms in bloom and flowering more than we had seen before; although they are swarmed by people taking pictures with them of course. We stopped at a bench, at one point, and a snack or two later ended up feeding the pidgeons. They love crackers. Nick gained the trust of one pigeon who repeatedly came up on his knee for extra crackers. After enjoying the garden for some time we saw on the map that a shrine was probably about another 15 minute walk north so we decided to head up there to check it out. The grand tomato-soup red arches and buildings of the shrine were very striking against the green landscape surrounding it. It was definitely one of the nicer places of worship we have visited and also less busy than others have been. We headed back after through the grounds of the Imperial Palace and past where our hostel is to carry on south to go to a shopping area. I managed to find an area of second hand shops, much to Nick's delight, and we had a look around those for a while before rounding off the evening with good food and a trip to a discount store. Hopefully our legs don't hurt too much tomorrow as we plan to walk again!Read more