Bridge going to front gate of imperial castle

Today we went to the imperial castle, but we weren’t able to actually go in because it was too busy. We got to wander the premesis and look at all the pretty architecture and gardens, which was lowkey better. This place was absolutely insane. One of the most beautiful places I have ever been. There were gardens and fields and old buildings and new buildings and shrines and so much more, all sitting in a giant moat. The highlight for me was the koi pond/flower field. It was soooo pretty and looked especially cool with the giant buildings in the background. My favorite part of the scenery was seeing the dicotomy of the natural, old stuff with the industrial, new stuff in the background. It made it feel like some gateway to another world.

Picture I thought was cool, showing what I mean by the dichotomy

After the imperial castle we trained over to Harajuku to see a Shinto temple. Before that it was lunchtime and we had about an hour to find somewhere to eat and do whatever. We walked around this cool side street with a bunch of little hole-in-the-wall places but ended up eating in a food court because it was easier and had options (*cough* *cough* esther *cough*). I got a yummy corn dog and then a strawberry & banana smoothie at a different place when we were walking back, it was sooo good. We met up with the gang and then walked across the street to the Shinto temple and massive wooden Torii gate.

Big torii gate

The Meiji shrine was really cool but it was getting hot so we called the day and all split up to do our own thing. Since we were like 2 stops from Shibuya it was time for round 2. Me and Vincent went back to this record store that had a bunch of ghibli stuff. I got 2 cds as gifts and he got 3 ghibli vinyls. Then we tried to go to this big music store but it was like impossible to get in even though it said it wasn’t closed, so we assumed the workers were just doing inventory or something. We found a different music store but it was really small. Then we went into a different record store that had a lot more western music and modern music than the first, but nothing I was dying for. After shopping we met up with Maddy and Esther to get dinner, which took far longer than it should have cuz we were being stupid and undecisive. After dinner we trained back to Akihabara and crashed.