The eastern garden is located at the eastern part of the Imperial Palace
of 115ha and
is open to the public from 9:30 to 17:00 except Mondays and Fridays.
It comprises a big pond, a old tea house, many flower beds, virgin forests,
old wooden
buildings, etc. When you visit the garden, you can visit Shozokan museum
at the same
time, where imperial family's treasures are displayed, and see original gates, buildings,
castle walls, moats and so on of the old Edo castle which was built in
1590 by a great
feudal lord, TOKUGAWA Ieyasu, and fifteen TOKUGAWA shoguns ruled all over Japan
from 1600 to 1867 from there.
You can visit the garden through the Ohtemon gate and others free of charge
after getting off
at Ohotemachi station of the subway of Chiyoda, Marunouchi, Hanzomon or
Mita.
Now the 125th emperor Akihito and empress Michiko live in the Imperial
Place.
The Tokyo Central Railway Station of JR, of which rehabilitation works
were finished at the end of September,
2012. The station building was constructed modelling after Amsterdam station
in Holland in 1914 and was
destroyed considerably by American air raids in 1945. The four bullet train
lines (Shinkansen) of Tokaido,
Tohoku, Nagano and Joetsu start here and 381 thousand passengers get on and off at the station
each day
in 2011 on the average.
The inside of the station building
The facade of the Tokyo station building
We have Shin-Marunouchi building of 38 floors at the left
hand of the Marunouchi building in front of Tokyo Central
station, and a big shopping mall with over 100 shops
and many restaurants and cafeterias at the first basement
floor to 7th floor in it.
The building was completed in March, 2007 and is
connected with JR Tokyo station and the Ohtemachi
stations of subway lines by underground passages.
It takes 12 minutes on foot from the Ohtemon gate of
the Imperial Place to JR Tokyo Central station.
We have Marunouchi building of 37 floors in front of
the station and a big shopping mall with more than
150 shops , many restaurants and cafeterias at the first
basement floor to 6th floor in it.
The building was completed in August, 2002 and is
connected with Tokyo station by underground
passages.
This is the OHTEMON-gate.
This is an outer moat surrounding the Imperial
Palace and its length is 4km. The width of the
moat is over 55m, out of range of a matchbook gun.
These are the foundations of the keep of
the Edo castle. The main tower burnt down in
1657. But it has been never reconstructed.
This is SUWA tea house built for Meiji
emperor in 1880s. and azaleas are
in full bloom in April.
Three carps are swimming in the pond and
one in the center is new species.
Ninomaru garden with a big pond
in the center.
This is another guardsmen's station ,
where 100 samurai gourds stayed day and night.
This is an original guardsmen's house
where samurai used to stay day and night
guarding the castle.
Here used to be a moat before the stone
gate.
This is the museum of San-no-maru
Shozokan, where emperor family's
treasures are displayed.
This is a reception office.When you go in
and out there, you receive only a small tile
and return it to them at your departure.
This is the interior gate which we see
just after passing the front gate and
a small square.
