Week two - Imperial Palace and Hibiya Park

We took a walk from Dave's office to our new apartment, just to see if it was something that he could do occasionally. I guess that is the first and last time, it took approx. two hours.


A cool looking red structure

A fountain right outside the Imperial Palace...he's a pretty good photographer, huh?



Trees on the Imperial Palace grounds...and for comparision the same area only four months ago.


Welcome to Hibiya Park, one of the most beautiful parks in Tokyo! Some of the parks in Tokyo are enormous, much larger than say the Boston Common and much different. Parks are usually very lush giving them a private feel, with meandering wodden paths and bridges throughout, it is also very common to find several cafes and restaurants, tennis courts (grass), flowers gardens, fish ponds, huge fountains and even concert pavillions within the park walls. We found it all in Hibiya park.

At the entrance of Hibiya Park an old fashion drinking fountain and below are several shots of some of the flowers that we saw in Hibiya park...











This round stone (above) was used as money in Yap Island (the present Federated States of Micronesia) in the South Pacific. Such stone money varies greatly in size from about 6cm to 3m in diameter.
In general, the valus was decided based on four characteristics: 1) diameter, 2) surface texture(smooth or rough), 3) shape, and 4) difficulty of transportation.
This stone money is approx. circular, measuring 1.35m across its longest axis and 1.0 m across its shortest. It was regarded to be worth about 1,000 yen in 1924. That is Dave's shoe for a size comparision.




This is a famous tree in the park because it is estimated to be at least 400 years old.



Dave in the park under a canopy of vines outside the concert pavillion.