Until this month, I had never been somewhere with a good elevated view of the moat surrounding the Imperial Palace. The 35th floor of the Marunouchi Building does yield this view, but what you’re seeing there is more the edge of the palace grounds and Kokyo Gaien National Garden.
For its part, Tokyo Midtown Hibiya also rises 35 floors above ground, but most visitors will only ever see the shopping and dining part of the building, which tops out in a 7th-floor terrace. From there and the windows in the lobby of Toho Cinemas Hibiya, you can see the same edge of the palace from the opposite side, though it’s not quite high enough to give a real bird’s-eye view looking down on it.
It wasn’t until I took a different elevator and ventured up onto the 9th floor of the office part of the building that I beheld this view of the palace moat. I was there to pick up my press pass on the final day of the Tokyo International Film Festival, where I screened the closing film, Godzilla Minus One. I filed my review later that night. The US-based editor who approved my pitch happened to be honeymooning in Japan the same week, which just goes to show that the UK isn’t the only place where this country is trending for travel.