Exploring Tokyo: A 10-Day Autumn Adventure (Part 3)

We started the day really bright and early as we wanted to enjoy the calm of Tokyo before the rush hour. Our agenda for the morning was to walk to the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. After an early breakfast at Starbucks, we walked to the garden, which was a 15–20-minute walk from our hotel. Even that early in the morning, we saw the beginning of the rush hour crowd outside Shinjuku station. The site of the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was originally the residence of a daimyo of the Edo era and was built as an imperial garden in 1906. The expansive garden has 3 distinct areas – the Japanese Garden, English Garden and French Garden. I personally found it to be a wonderful oasis right in the middle of bustling Shinjuku. It offers a quiet, calm and peaceful respite for anyone who simply want to step back and re-center from the hectic frenzy of urban living. It was one of the most beautiful and serene places in Tokyo that I’ve been blessed to visit, specially with the late autumn colors in full bloom with the skyscrapers of Tokyo as its backdrop.

After the calm of the garden, we ventured into the heart of busting Tokyo. We took the subway to first visit and view the Tokyo Tower from the ground level then proceeded to the Minato district to visit swanky Azabudai Hills Mori JP building complex. It houses retail, restaurants, arts/galleries and nature spaces. One of the Tokyo’s most visited attraction – teamLab Borderless is also located in there. Unfortunately, due to a ticketing schedule mix up, we were unable to visit teamlabs but instead, we walked around and chilled at several cafés. One of which was the Azabudai Hills Observation Deck. To access the observation deck, all you need to do is take the lift to the 33rd Floor of the Mori JP Building and enter through the cafe there. The price of entrance is simply a purchase of drinks or food. The observation deck itself is very nice. It has huge staircase which also acts as sitting benches for those who want to sit away from the tables in the cafe and yet away from the crowd at the observation deck itself. The floor to ceiling glass windows at the observation deck offers an almost panoramic view of Tokyo, including a wonderful view of the Tokyo Tower. On a clear day, one can even see a glimpse of Mt. Fuji there.

After the observation deck, we met up with one of our church pastors and his wife who was also visiting Tokyo and spend the rest of the afternoon until dusk in a cafe, just chilling and catching up before heading back to Shinjuku for dinner and visiting the famed cat LCD outdoor screen before heading back to the hotel to call it a day.

Our agenda for the next day was to visit the Tokyo Imperial Palace which is the official residence of the imperial family of Japan. As we walked to the palace area, we walked through some of the nicest tree-lined streets of Tokyo. There are several entrances to the palace grounds, all of which had tight security measures (as expected). The palace grounds are quite nice but a bit underwhelming for me. Aside from a well-manicured garden ground, you get to walk around and view the moat surrounding the palace grounds. You are not allowed a view of the palace itself, and I do find the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden to be much nicer.

After our visit to the Imperial Palace grounds, we had a nice leisurely lunch at Dean and Deluca before walking to visit the grand Tokyo Station. The beautiful station has a red brick facade with a distinct European inspired architecture and is considered as one of the finest buildings of the Meiji era. Tokyo Station is one of the busiest (if not, the busiest) station in Tokyo and is one of the major gateways for land-based travel in Tokyo. It also houses an extensive underground complex with shops and restaurants to cater to busy travelers. We then proceeded to yet another cafe, Glitch Coffee in Ginza. Glitch is one of the most popular coffee places in Tokyo with several branches in the city. With popularity comes the crowd, since I really wanted to try their coffee, we had to wait in line for around 30 minutes before we were able to enter their small space in Ginza. They are well known for their light roast, single origin coffee bean choices, while I personally prefer the robustness and body of a medium /dark roast coffee, I found their coffee to be quite good. The place was tastefully decorated, good quiet background music, well-presented bar with all the choices laid out and attentive baristas who are ready to assist you. After our “nth” coffee break, we headed back to Shinjuku to the Metropolitan Government building to visit its free observation deck. There are 2 observation towers there but only one was open for the day we were there, It was a bit crowded as we joined the late afternoon crowd who, like us, wanted to view the sunset over Tokyo from way up. We were a bit tired from walking close to 30K steps, so we had a quiet dinner then went back to our hotel to retire for the day. Thus end Part 3 of our 10-day Tokyo adventure.

All photos are clickable for the non-cropped view and were taken with my Fuji X100VI using the Portra 400 film recipe. Do take time to follow, like, share and comment . Thank you and God bless, Stay tuned for Part 4 🙂