D-2: Imperial Palace and museum

If you only have 1 day in Tokyo you need to see the Imperial Palace by day and Shibuya by night. Then you'll taste what Japan is. A great balance between tradition and modernity.

Tokyo Imperial Palace: garden and museum. All what a museum addict like me need...

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Very easy to find from the Main station but very desappointing as well. You can't see anything , all the entrence are closed. In fact, you're just allowed to enter the East Garden and the parks around the Craft Gallery. But it worths a visit.
The entrance of the garden is free of charge, which is very seldom in Japan where everything has a price (especially in Kyoto )

That's a shame we are in June. There's still some flowers blossoming and it's incredibly beautiful. I even can't image how marvellous it can be during spring time.

There's a lot of tourists and I'm getting the feeling I'm in Europe. I hear French and Italian very clearly and more often than English. They look very busy by taking pictures of everything instead of trying to chill a bit out as the Japanese visitors are doing. But Japanese are also very practical people and don't hesitate to combine business with pleasure. I'm about to take a little path when somebody is calling me : "Excuse me Madame, excuse me, do you speak English?" 2 guys, very well dressed, smart and elegant want apparently ask me something.
" We are studying English at the University of Tokyo. We need to practice our English and we wonder if we may have your address email and communicate in English with you."
Hum, I'm not naïve you know, I'm even the kind of people who see bad things everywhere and of course I read all that things about harassment against women in Japan before travelling . But well, they won't get my phone number nor my postal address and of course, I'm not ready to follow them in a car and event if I was I couldn't: car are forbidden in the garden. I have an address I don't use that often and well, I travelled alone this morning in an overcrowded train from Yokohama and with my fear skin, my European look I think I'm "visible" if you know what I mean. But everything went fine. Nobody who stared, made comments, whistled at me and nor at the others women but a sweet guy who let me his seat. I'm concluding that those who mentionned harassment (and even more ) in all the travel guides I've read have never been in France.
Well, let's finish my story. I give them one of my 4 email addresses. About me they know I'm French living in Denmark and my nickname.
I'll got an email from 1 of them 2 days later. Very kind and very polite and we'll stay in touch. 1 day in Tokyo and already 1 friend

Some videos (sorry for the quality)

The national Museum of Modern Art and the Craft Gallery are both in the Imperial Palace area. It was a bit strange for me because it does not look like an Imperial Palace everywhere. I mean, big avenues and buildings surround the palace and to reach the Modern Art Museum you have to go this way:

I'm very surprise by the quietness as well. Yes, you see there are some people and cars but we are in Tokyo and I did expect a bigger traffic jam. Well, I won't complain. It's better this way, especially around a park.

The Museum of Modern Art is not a nice building, at least that's what I think:

For me it's more an iron box than a cultural institution but hopefully the collection is very interesting. I'm discovering Japanese artist I didn't know before and it's amazing to see how much they've been influenced by Europe and most generally by the Western culture. It's almost a shame. I would I love see more typical Japanese art in the exhibition.
Some rooms only present French artists. That wasn't really the aim of my trip. Again a proof that the world is just a small village. Globalisation...

My ticket's fees include the visit of the Craft Gallery, few meters away. The building looks pretty old while a modern sculpture is prominently displayed in front of the main door.

The exhibition is very nice but that's shame everything is in Japanese. At the Modern Art, eventhough I couldn't understand the title of the painting, I could at least watch them and enjoy (or not). Here, there's a lot of tools, manuscripts, vellums, calligraphy. I'm definitely feeling illeterate in this country (I'll write an article about it later). Hopefully the 1st floor presents kimonos and there's a movie to explain how to make them. Of course the movie is in Japanese but the film is very well done and I can follow the explanations thanks to the pictures. It's passionnating but it won't be a job for me. I'm not that meticulous and patient

It's already 5pm. The museum are closing and I'm just realising that I'm walking for 6 hours now and that I'm starving. The park, just beside the museum, is calling for me. That's very quiet and calm and so green. Difficult to imagine that over 20 millions people are living here. For 3 weeks, I'll be amazed by that duality tradition-modernity and nature-technology. We find park and green area everywhere, with lakes full of fishes. By the way, I've got a fan while eating my sandwich: I've been told that birds and especially those bigs crows steal visitors' meal. But with me, NO WAY. Nobody touch my food, even not a crow