Imperial Palace and Tokyo Tower 28th March 2007

It took a while to find the Imperial Palace today. When we got to the train station, we were asking all these Japanese people how to get to the Imperial Palace and none of them knew what we were talking about. They didn’t know what it was called in English, they only knew what it was called in Japanese. We eventually found the information desk and this really nice lady explained in perfect English how to get there. I really, REALLY wish I could speak more Japanese so that I could explain myself better to people! It is so frustrating sometimes.

We eventually got to the Imperial Palace and it was really beautiful. We didn’t get to go inside the grounds and see the actual palace as it wasn’t opened to the public, but we walked around the gardens that surrounded it and took lots of photos. There was this really cool bit that we saw that had lots of fountains and statues where people who are on their lunch break like to go to eat their lunch with their work mates. It is a really popular place to go as it is really pretty – especially when the weather is nice.

After walking around for what seemed like hours, we got on a train and headed for the Tokyo Tower. Tina and I were on our own. We were so proud of ourselves that we found the Tokyo Tower all by ourselves with no help from Steve.

The Tokyo Tower was so cool. There are lots of things to see and do inside the tower. We saw the Wax Museum which was really interesting. In this museum, there were hundreds of models of famous movie stars, singers and inventors. Some of them looked so real and I couldn’t help thinking of that movie, “The House Of Wax” and getting a little freaked out by how real they all looked! They had models of The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Last Supper, Julia Roberts and heaps more!

I also got a photo pretending to be the fattest man in the world, and I got a photo standing next to the tallest man in the world. His name is Robert Wadlow and he was about 8-something feet tall. He truly was a giant man!

There was also this really scary torture section where they had wax models of how they used to torture people in the past. One way was to tie a man’s arms and legs down to a surface and stretch them so far so that their muscles and tendons would snap. This was usually done to force the truth out of someone. Another form of torture was when a man was strapped to a wheel on his back and on the surface of the wheel was sharp spikes that would pierce the skin and the man would bleed to death. The next form of torture was when the man would lie on his back with a funnel in his mouth and water would continuously be poured into his mouth, bloating his stomach so that he would either die from his stomach being burst open or he would suffocate on the water if he chose not to drink it. The worst one was when the man would be left in a tiny cage that only allowed him to stand in an uncomfortable position with no food or water until he starved to death. Sometimes, they would put him out into the public view as an example to the people.

The most interesting section was the optical illusion and magic tricks section. In the optical illusion section, there were lots of pictures on the walls that you can see in 3D when you look at it in a certain position. The magic tricks section was the best! The photos you can see below say it all!



After seeing all the different sections of the Tokyo Tower, we went to the Observatory which was 150metres above the ground so that we got a beautiful night view of Tokyo. It was picturesque! To top it off, there was a jazz band playing and there was an amazing singer with a beautiful voice that we got to hear. It was a very interesting and enjoyable day and night.