10/10/09

Day 6 - The Imperial Gardens Tokyo and Bullet Train to Kyoto

After our big day yesterday Mum and Dad had me up early again, for what they said would be another big day - boy were the right. We left the hotel at 8am and headed to the Imperial Gardens (as they were closed yesterday when we wanted to look at them). The gardens were beautiful, full of character with an enchanted feel to them. Mum really wanted to look inside the Imperial Palace but unfortunately it was closed off to tourists. The stone walls were 10m high to keep out intruders in the Edo period (16th C) the gardens were sectioned off into outer, inner and middle, the further you got to the centre was where the more important residents lived, the most important the Shogun.
We headed back to Tokyo station at midday to catch a bullet train (Shinkansen) to Kyoto. Dad and I were super excited about the bullet train - the look space age and go supersonic fast (300km p/hr). It took us about 2½hrs to reach Kyoto. When then walked what Mum and I were promised 2km (by the lady at the information desk) - ended up being more like 5km to our hotel with our packs on. We were extremely tired and grumpy by the time we got to the hotel.