Day 2 - More Tokyo

Today we were treated to some perks by the hotel due to the minor fiasco with the safe, which caused us to miss the morning part of the tour we had planned.  So, we started with breakfast in the (ahem) Executive Lounge, which gave a very nice, morning view of Shinjuku and surrounds; not to mention a great breakfast spread.
After that we hopped the subway to Chiyoda, a ward dominated by the Imperial Palace grounds.  You're not actually allowed to lay eyes on the Imperial Palace, but the grounds are large, green and feature the remains of an Edo era castle and some nice gardens.  Entry is through one of several impressive gates:

The Northeastern gate to the Imperial Palace grounds.

The fortifications featured moats and rock walls formed from massive blocks and without mortar, it seemed (though I think some metal connectors were mentioned on a plaque)...but mostly just formed and stacked in a very stable way.  The sloping corners were dramatic...

There was a bamboo garden with examples of all the native bamboo species.  Here are a few...

Some other lovely and (ahem) "interesting" plants...

Red Spider Lily...this was poppin' up, here and there, all over the parks we visited.

Ahem.  This is the one...ahem.

Saw some interesting insecty critters, too..

Biggest caterpillar I've ever seen...guess that explained the big butterflies (and vice versa).

Big bees, too.

Another big butterfly...

And...action shot!

Although we couldn't see the Imperial Palace there were some smaller outbuildings around, with those nice Japanese detailed elements...

This is a bit more modern..meant to be based on the lotus flower.  It's a music hall that was built to commemorate something Imperial of some sort.

 Plus, the garden grounds were quite nice..

When we left the Imperial Palace, our goal was the Tokyo Tower, but we got a little side-tracked by a Temple on the way.  Like many of the temples we came across, there seemed to be a number of options for offerings or prayers.  There was usually an ash-filled stand in which you could insert a scroll and then set it alight; there were often water baths that you could use a ladle to withdraw from and wash your hands with; there were pieces of paper (presumably with prayers on them) that you could purchase and tie to strings, as below; often there were small statues of Buddha or other Shinto(?) deities that you could make offerings to, a common one being to add a red beanie or bib; there were slats of wood or other small hangable items sometimes tied to the "theme" of the temple that you could purchase and seemed to come other pre-inscribed with prayer, or permitted you to write your own.

The standard gate, in rustic condition.

One of the gate guardians.

The temple itself with the Tokyo Tower behind.

Little Buddhas, with offerings and adornments.

Buddha likes beanies.

Prayers on the line.

Inside the temple...the seats on the side were set up for musicians.  That woulda been something to see.

Behind the temple were some smaller shrines, and a wee cemetery.

The Two Towers.  One Buddhist antenna, one Tokyo Tower.

A bit more detail on the little shrine.

...and the antenna.

This big-ass bug went flying past me, and i tracked it down...it was the first time I've actually laid eyes on a cicada out in the open!  Couldn't get that close, but it was about the size of my thumb, just so's you know.  It was definitely cicada season...it was quite raucous with them up in the trees in most of the parks we visited.

We carried on to the Tokyo Tower and went up for a view.  It was pretty hazy and the windows were kind of cruddy plexiglass so the shots weren't to good.  Also, apparently you can only see Mt. Fuji from the tower on a very clear day, which this was not.  Who knew?  I thought Mt. Fuji dominated Tokyo like the North Shore mountains in Vancouver, but it's way off in the distance.

The Tokyo Tower was celebrating 55 years of having weird mascots.  

Towerful.

Harbour view...there's that weird ol' Fuji TV station again.

Looking towards Shinjuku, with my favourite iconic buildings to the far left, and buried in the right-most cluster, respectively.

I was expecting Tokyo to be more built up, but this and the Shinjuku shot captures most of the real high-rises.  Hmmm...maybe it's cos of all those earthquakes.

 We were pretty bagged after the Tower, given jet-lag and being on our feet all day, so we headed back for our second apology-perk from the hotel: a free buffet dinner.  Oh, man...that hit the spot, I can tell ya.