皇居 (koukyo) - Imperial Palace. First Try...

Twice a year, the imperial palace is opened for public. It is opened on the 2nd of January for the traditional new year greeting of the emperor and on the emperors birthday. The current emperor happens to have birthday on the 23rd of December. As the emperors birthday is also a national holiday, I didn't have to go to work and decided to use that day to visit the palace. I left Atsugi around 3pm, as the previous night in Shibuya was quite tiring and I needed some time to get going. After getting lost in Shinyuku station when switching trains (Shinyuku serves around 3-5 million customers a day, so it is a little bit larger than your ordinary train station...) I managed to arrive at the palace at arround 17:45. Meanwhile it became completely dark. After arriving at the closed gates the friendly and slightly tried to explain me that everything was already over at 3pm... great :-}. But I will give it a new try on the 2nd of January! And I will be there right in the moring when it opens at 9am!
While beeing in Tokio and having nothing better to do, I used the time to make some pictures of Tokio by night.
The first picture shows the outer lake around the imperial palace and is taken from one of the bridges. The second one shows one of towers that guard that bridge.


Japan is a very busy country. Even on a national holiday, skyscrapers are built during the night:

Also the "ordinary" Skyline is really impressive at night. Unfortunately it is tricky to get that on a picture. This picture was taken near Shinyuku station.
While walking through the shops near Shinyuku station, I suddenly realized a very familar smell and found a shop selling "Plätzchen" and a real "Christ Stollen" for around 10 EUR :-). Woot! Like a real Christmas!