McPhee Family

After another leisurely morning spent in our apartment, we headed out after lunch to the Tokyo Imperial Palace, about 25 minutes on the train.

Before that we quickly walked over to the Yasukuni Shrine, which is a shrine dedicated to those who died in war.

We then headed across the road towards the Palace area.  The Tokyo Imperial Palace is the primary residence of the Emperor of Japan. It is a large park-like area located in the Chiyoda ward of Tokyo and contains buildings including the main palace, the private residences of the Imperial Family, an archive, museums and administrative offices.

The whole area is surrounded by a moat and there is plenty of walking required to cover the extensive garden areas surrounding the palace.

We were also able to see some of the last few flowering cherry blossom trees in Tokyo.

Even Mum and Dad were forced to get into a photo with the flowers.

We spent a couple of hours walking around the gardens before walking back to the train station to come back to our apartment.

Once we got back to the SkyTree station, we walked to the small traditional Japanese house we stayed in on our last trip in 2014.  Here are the girls outside the front door (house on the right) with a small shrine in the background.

We then returned for dinner and an early night in.  Here is the view of the Tokyo SkyTree from our balcony at our apartment.