Monday, 1 December 2025

Final full day in Japan, day 47 is more about the brief stop in Hong Kong.

This trip was all about chasing autumnal leaves from Hokkaido, through Aomori and down to Kyushu before rebounding to Tokyo. On my final day in Tokyo I kept at it so parks were on the agenda, as was a trip on the Tokyo Sakura Tram. Sadly I didn’t score a historic tram but just the fact that Tokyo still has them when it is awash with trains and subways is amazing. It’s also amazing what you see when you are walking and occasionally look up. I don’t know this history of this building but I’ll try to find out as it was a surprise.

what a surprise

The first park target was Ueno Park, which I hadn’t visited before. I had considered visiting the zoo but like all the museums it was closed on Monday! That left me looking at the leaves instead.

glorious colours

And the other major autumnal colour too

yellow

But I was mostly hunting red and there was plenty of it.

lots of red

and more red

and a carpet of fallen yellow

And what’s a park without a pagoda, Kan’ei-ji.

Kan’ei-ji

And of course a shrine, Ueno Toshogu Shrine.

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

Ueno Toshogu Shrine

There is a large lake, with paddle boats, and this is about as close as I got to the Skytree.

skytree in the background

sometimes the season is just wrong but

Sometimes you visit in the wrong season for a plant but it still puts on a show anyway.

The next stop was Imperial Palace East National Gardens. Back on a previous trip in 2008 I had discovered a cubic water feature but the camera wasn’t really up to the task back then so I thought I would see if I could find it before the gardens closed.

Imperial Palace East National Gardens

Imperial Palace East National Gardens

people enjoying the day

still stunning colour

Imperial Palace East National Gardens

I remembered that the cube I was looking for was somewhere around here.

Imperial Palace East National Gardens

It would seem that people don’t come this way often

carpet of leaves

And here it is!

mission complete

One last thing to attempt was to get to the observation deck at Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It’s a free observation deck and while working for Juniper I must have passed it every day when going from the hotel to the office but I never visited. Today was the day!

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

Good night Fuji-san

Walking to the station I passed some neon installations which were interesting but I had a dinner with friends to make so I didn’t hang around to photograph more of it.

Some neon

And as promised I found another of those orange juice vending machines so here is a full shot of it.

orange juice

And finally after a very fine dinner with the APAN Japan crowd I headed to a hotel at Haneda so I wouldn’t need to deal with Tokyo traffic in the morning and this is a blurry picture of the taxi holding bay as the coach zoomed past it. The iPhone didn’t really cope with the motion or the darkness but the shot is interesting anyway.

taxi bay at Haneda

And that’s it for the Japan trip. Day 47 is a travel day to Hong Kong, afternoon and evening there, and a late night flight home.

Photos from Hong Kong will appear once I’m home.