An Appointment with the Emperor

Jan. 2nd, 2011:

This is the 3rd of a 3 part series about emperors and the imperial palace.  For the history of the emperors and Edo Castle, which was the predecessor of the Imperial Palace, you can read about it here.  For the history of the Imperial Palace and a tour of the palace grounds open to the public, you can find it here.

Today we headed to the Imperial Palace in the early afternoon for today's events.  During the day, the New Year's speech is given multiple times so there wasn't any need to get there early.  First, we had to go through security near the front of Nijubashi.  The security for this event was easily the most I've seen while in Japan.

After getting through the security we were able to walk up Nijubashi and through the Main Gate normally closed to the public.

The view of Fushimi Yagura and the Steel Bridge of Nijubashi while standing on the Stone Bridge of Nijubashi.

One of the decorative lamp posts that line the bridges of Nijubashi.

The view of Nijubashi's Stone Bridge and Kokyogaien from Nijubashi's Steel Bridge.

The inner gate to the palace.

After walking over Nijubashi and passing through the gates we were in the grounds of the private area of the Imperial Palace.  It was from here that we would wait and then hear the Emperor's speech given from a special balcony of the Main Building.

The Main Building of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

Everyone that comes piles into the area in front of the building and waits for the Imperial Family to come out onto the balcony and the Emperor to give his New Year's greeting and speech.

The Emperor giving the New Year's speech along with members of the Imperial Family.
From left to right: Crown Princess Masako, Crown Prince Naruhito, Emperor Akihito, Empress Michiko, Prince Akishino and Princess Kiko. 

The Emperor and Imperial Family's entrance onto the balcony is greeted by people waving Japanese flags.

Also during their leaving.

We got there pretty close to the speech, so we didn't have a good view.  We decided to wait there until the next one was given.

Palace Guard standing watch.

Changing of the Guards.

After this, it was time for the second speech.

After the speech we passed through more of the palace grounds that are normally off-limits throughout the year.

Including being able to get close to the base of Fujimi Yagura.

The main exit for this event was Kikyōmon, also normally off-limits throughout the year.  I took the opportunity to take some pictures of some of the details of the inner gate.

The Shachihoko of the inner gate.

A detail of the wall to the roof of the inner gate.

After exiting Kikyōmon, we were back in Kokyogaien.  At this point I was expecting that we would go home, but to my surprise right near the entrance was a host of souvenir tents.  I definitely wasn't expecting souvenir stands to penetrate the Imperial Palace Grounds, but right at the exit was a long line of stands covering the area not being used by security.  While these had the typical souvenir fare of snacks and tiny trinkets relating to the Imperial Palace, we also found some sake for sale in nice bottles depicting Nijubashi so we decided to get one.

We returned home as the gates to the Emperor's Palace were again closed to the public until near the very end of this year, December 23rd for the Emperor's Birthday.