Day: June 18, 2023

Day 10

I was very excited for this day because I had heard that the Imperial Palace gardens were pretty. The giant stones that made up the walls were incredible and the koi pond was mesmerizing. I loved the waterfall and all of the trails that surrounded the flower beds nextto the pond. One of the things I was shocked by was the number of times each shrine has burned down. I think the most we had heard was eight times, I don’t remember how many times the Imperial Palace burned but it wasn’t nearly that many times.

After a brief lunch of ricotta and banana pancakes, we all met at the final shrine of the entire trip. It reminded me significantly of the backyard of the house I grew up in with the thick woods aesthetic and the river running through it. Something I was surprised by was the giant row of barrels that once held wine – although I cannot remember the story behind it. While this shrine was not as staggering as the shrine on the cliff or the one with over one thousand gates or statues, I thoroughly enjoyed the simplicity of this one.

Day 9

For the free day in Tokyo, I traveled solo to Shibuya to see the Hachiko memorial statue and the famous Shibuya scramble crossing. I remember reading the heartwarming book Hachiko when I was around 10 in school. At the end I found out that there was a statue of the loyal dog in Japan at the station he would wait at for his owner after he left for work. His owner ended up passing while at work and never came back; so the dog never left. After reading about it, I always wanted to get to see it in real life.

Another place on my Japan bucket list was Shibuya crossing. I’ve gotten to see it in so many different movies and television shows. Fortunately for me, it was right next to the Hachiko memorial statue. Right at the crossing’s peak, it has up to 3,000 people crossing at once. I got to cross it and got to see a birds eye view of the crossing.

Afterwards I walked thirty minutes to get to the Gotokuji temple, known for holding hundreds of lucky cat figures. I knew heading into the country, I wanted to buy one of these figures as well as one for my friend. It was almost overwhelming seeing all of the figures and I enjoyed finding hidden figures that other people left.