Otaku in Japan: Tokyo Imperial Palace and Asakusa

Decided when I woke up after hearing that the Imperial Palace is only open 2 times a year and today being one of them I made my way to the train station. I wanted to go to Asakusa as well as it was built during the Edo Period (1603 to 1868) and still maintains that look.

When I arrived at Tokyo station it was only a 10 min walk to the Imperial Palace, the lines going there came from the west, east and south and these weren't tiny lines they were HUGE. Once I got inside the grounds they had allot of police there, we had to all have a bag search, pat down and metal detector. Considering how many people had come the lines moved pretty smoothly and conveniently I arrived inside the Palace inner walls just on 11am where the royal family made a speech. The grounds where the Palace is is absolutely huge.
On the way back to the station to go to Asakusa I went into the Yasujuni-jinja Shrine these Shrines are big. The line for people wanting to get into the shrine through the huge wooden doors was at least 20 wide and took a good 15 min from where I was to get into it and pray to make your new years wishes.

Getting to Asakusa was easy and this time all the streets around the Asakusa Shrine were closed off to traffic. Asakua-Shrine was HUGE and I though the Yasujuni-jinja Shrine was big. For the New Years festival there was stands everywhere selling New Year items and bits and peices, gaming stands and then about 80% was food stands. EVERY food stand was packed and allot of the stands sold the same stuff but everyone brought it. The streets were only 5 people wide and some points only 3 wide trying to get anywhere was silly you just had to go with the flow unless you knew where to hop off this train of people. Once inside the Shrine grounds though it was a little easier to walk around and man this thing is big and tall. I brought some noodles and a Asahi beer (no laws with alcohol here walking around the streets) and walked around some more looking at all the stands.

On the way back at the end of the day I ran into the Giant Golden Turd of Tokyo aka the Asahi HQ building and saw the new Tokyo Tower. The old Tokyo Tower which is the red and white thing that looks like the Eiffel tower is only there now because of tourists the tower it self use to be the main telecommunications tower where everything went too, the new tower is meant to be finished this year 2011.