last day in japan for us - buhuuu. to lighten our mood we drove to the ghibli shop at tokyo station, as we wanted to buy some merchandise stuff we already saw at the ghibli shop in kyoto on day two. unfortunately they did not have the items we were looking for, so we decided to go to the imperial palace (opened today, yay), and later go to another ghibli shop. on our way to the imperial palace we spotted an area in front of a big hotel with loads of fountains[001-014], that had different activity cycles and stages. seems like it was a programmed choreography. we enjoyed the water wall[007-013] the most. also it was nice to cool the hands in the cool water a little bit. then we finally made it into the imperial palace garden[033-049], where nina got her own multi-pass[034,038]. awesome, isn't it? but as it was again hot and humid we tried to avoid staying in direct sunlight, which is kind of hard to accomplish, as the garden mostly consists of spacious open areas. to cool down, get a rest, and get nina something to eat we went to a nearby din tai fung branch, like the one at "tobu" that was closed four days ago, and nina wanted to taste their dumplings again so desperately. the restaurant had just opened, so no queueing (wow, imagine that), and not many people. we ordered a mix of all kinds of dumplings and buns, filled with meat, fish, or vegetarian stuff. we tried a novelty[059-060], sweet dumplings filled with red beans and a taro bun. soooo nomnom and delicious - nina was happy all over. after we left again, one could look right into the kitchen, as they had a big window there. the cooks inside were happy and amused that we took pictures of their artwork[062-064]. next stop was sky tree city. sky tree is the tallest building in tokyo, and had not yet existed the last time i was here. there would have been an observation deck, but due to lack of money, and as we already had quite a lot of observation decks, we skipped that. same to the aquarium that is there too. instead we went to the ghibli shop at sky tree city. and for the first time we were officially allowed to take pictures in a ghibli shop. inside we found a lot of cat buses, totoros, and all the lovely characters from the movies. also i found the item i was looking for, a cat bus flower pot. so cute. happy me. it really is frustrating when there is so much stuff you want to buy, and actually you could afford it, but you cannot buy it, because you cannot get to your money. aaaaargh, we hated that so much. it is like you have a cigarette, but no lighter. all the cool stuff they had here in tokyo... but we pulled ourselves together, and bought nothing else, because our last yen also dwindled. and so we reduced our activity to stuff one can do without paying. like enjoying the sky tree lights[088,091,093-094,097-102]. it seemed to us, that there was an opening ceremony for olympic games stuff and as soon as the ceremony was over, the sky tree was more colourful than the days before. it was some event to increase the liking of tokyo being a candidate city to host the olympic games in 2020. so there were loads of people enjoying the spectacle. we treated ourselves with a cold stone creamery ice cream. another thing we will definitely miss. then we went back to the hotel. last night at the edo sakura, this time again in an eastern style room. and again a different room. but once more, the room was great. after having a tea, we went to bed - very tired, and very sad, as it is our last night in japan. what a great trip. besides all the troubles and inconveniences that had happened to us, it was really a pleasure, and we totally enjoyed it. thank you nina for this wonderful holidays. 1944 pictures taken.