One of the things that surprised me when I first wandered about Tōkyō a decade ago was how much open space there was. Walking from Meiji Jingū towards the Imperial Palace I passed several large parks and chanced upon the Akasaka Palace (pictured above and below). Many of the wide boulevards did not have the overhead cobweb of electric cables and telephone wires that Fukuoka had, so you had an unobstructed view of the sky above. How refreshing! I had expected to find a soulless concrete jungle. What I discovered, however, was quite the opposite. I liked it so much that I returned to Tokyo a few months later, then again and again—two, three, even four trips a year—over the next ten years.

This was my first of many walks in the capital.

Akasaka Palace (赤坂離宮, Akasaka rikyu), or the State Guest House (迎賓館, Geihinkan), is one of the two state dues houses of the Government of Japan, the other being the Kyōto State Guest House. The palace was originally built as the Imperial Palace for the Crown Prince (東宮御所, Togu gosho) in 1909. Not too shabby.

In 2012 when I first stubbled upon the palace, it was closed to the public. A few years later, they opened it up. One of these days, I’ll try to get a peak inside.

venue leading from Akasaka Palace towards Hibiya.

Den of Thieves, also known as the headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party, which is neither very liberal or democratic. But they are the only game in town, I’m afraid, after the Democratic Party’s dismal response to the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011.

This photo was taken in 2012 and boy, what a difference a decade makes. Regardless or your political leaning, you can’t help admitting that the LDP really pushed through a number of reforms that changed life in Japan. Whether those changes were for the better, I’ll leave that up to you. I will say this: where I was once skeptical of Abe’s second stint as PM, near the end I had to say he had been effective, transformational even. If the pandemic never happened, where would we be today?

As is often the case, the Japanese Diet was closed for business when I came a-knockin'. One day I would like to take a tour of the building if that is possible.

The Diet building has been destroyed by Godzilla in the past, but was spared the Allies’ bombs in WWII. There is an interesting interview of Faubion Bowers who was the assistant to the assistant of Douglas MacArthur during the Occupation. He mentions that all the good areas of Tokyo were not bombed because the Americans and Allies intended to use the buildings after the war.

Moat surrounding the Imperial Palace. It was tempting to strip down to my skivvies and jump in.

Western gate leading to the Imperial Palace

The Sakuradamon Gate, location of the Sakuradamon Incident of 1860 when Chief Minister Ii Naosuke was assassinated by rōnin of the Mito and Satsuma Domains after the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the US was signed.

Cherry blossoms at the Cherry Blossom Field Gate (Sakuradamon).

View from Marunouchi Building of the park before the Imperial Palace. This wide open space was also rather unexpected. I really love the Marunouchi area, which I have written about elsewhere.

The 19th century building housing the Ministry of Justice is located across the street from the Imperial Palace.