cool things! – Page 2

Sneak peek at some upcoming pics from Thursday and Friday

Hey, all, I thought I’d just put up a few uncleaned-up shots from Thursday and Friday. I’m off to get more, and I’ll post more later, including any I take today!

A bit of illumination, in the cold and dark

So, Monday evening after sunset I decided to go down to the middle of Monzennakacho, down by one of the canal/rivers that run through town, to see what the illuminated cherry trees looked like. It was really cold, about 42 degrees with a steady wind making it feel like the 30s, but I layered up and walked down. For a stretch of one of the rivers, there were lanterns hung in the trees on both sides of the river, and a dock where brave evening tourists could ride an open tour boat along the shore. I took the landlubber route, and just walked the 3 or so blocks that were lit. The trees were still not 100% full, in fact there were quite a few that were still in the bud stage, so there’s still time once it warms up to go see them later this week or maybe the weekend. I also plan to go to the more touristy places over the weekend and early next week, if the blossoms hold up. I may have to head to other places as well, where blooming is taking longer.

At any rate, I saw these Monday evening.

A nice Sunday in the park

So Sunday was a nice day, relatively speaking, as it wasn’t bad temperature-wise, it almost made it to 60 degrees, and the sun was shining. Towards the afternoon, though, the wind picked up and started to have a wind chill, a prelude to an ugly week. But I did manage to see a few cherry trees blooming, and found a neat little thing for kids along the way.

So, the cherry trees I found in Etchujima Park, along the bank of the Sumida river south of my apartment were mostly full.

There was a short section of the trail along the river where they had an area set aside for kids. What was neat about it was that it was a place where kids could learn street and traffic signals, safely and without interfering with actual traffic! The section had painted crosswalks, and working, timed stop lights and walk-don’t walk signals, but smaller than the real thing, and made lower to the ground so little kids could see them. I thought that was a really neat idea, I think it would be good for kids in the US to learn on! It was also helpful that kids were learning how to ride their bikes on the same trail, and they could learn to be responsible drivers, too!

I didn’t get many more pictures, as I met a couple and their son, tourists from California, and talked with them for a while. We talked about what they planned on the trip, and I gave them some (hopefully) helpful things that I’ve learned about being a tourist in Japan. It started to get cold, and I didn’t want to keep them, they weren’t really dressed for it, and I needed to get to the drug store to get some soap and laundry detergent. I did manage to see a few more neat things before it got too cold to hold a camera for long. In hindsight I wish I’d gotten an earlier start.

Some pictures on my first walkabout.

So, Wednesday morning broke nice and clear, except for the dust blowing over Tokyo from China, but otherwise the day started nice. I decided I would walk around the neighborhood a bit, to see if I could see any cherry trees blooming along the Sumida River, which is about a quarter-mile from my apartment. I made my way down to the riverbank, which has a park and walkway all along the river on both sides, and started north.

After walking for a while, I found that I was very close to one of the city’s parks, Kiyosumi Gardens. I decided to go ahead and check out the park, which is a nice, well laid-out Japanese garden, with hundreds of interesting rocks from all over Japan, and some wildlife in the form of birds and turtles, as well as hungry koi fish in the large pond/small lake. They charge a small admission fee, and I was able to finagle the senior rate, which was 70 yen, or about 45 cents! Who says Japan is expensive! 🙂 Sadly there were no cherry blossoms, but there were some flowering bushes, not sure what kind though.

After strolling through the park for a while, making a full circuit of the paths, I decided to get some lunch, and on my way out the gate I saw a Denny’s down the block! Unfortunately, at 1:30 PM they had a lot of people waiting, especially families, so I changed my plans and started walking down the street. I ended up going into this little ramen shop and having a big bowl with a side of rice and pickled cabbage. The ramen had a piece of pork so well cooked it practically fell apart in my chopsticks, and the noodles were cooked just firm enough, and the broth was really really good and salty.

Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of the shop or the food, I didn’t ask permission and I didn’t want to be one of “those” tourists and act like I owned the place, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was a whole universe better than any cup ramen you might have had, though!

From there, my trek took me on a subway ride to Shinjuku to the apartment office to tell them of a maintenance issue I had, and then back to Monzennakacho on a different train line. When I got back to the apartment I checked my health app on my phone and found that I had walked over 5 miles! I hadn’t intended to walk quite that far on my first day, but thankfully I have been working up to it over the past year or so.

Anyway, that’s all for Wednesday! I took Thursday off so I could get these pictures ready!

Science fiction boat in Tokyo!

One of the neat things in Tokyo is a tour boat company that runs different types of tour boats up and down the Sumida River, in the heart of Tokyo. Three of the boats were designed by famous Japanese science fiction creator Leiji Matsumoto, and the boats are designed to resemble space ships. The interior of the boats are very 70’s sci-fi, and have retro-style tables and sofas. I happened to catch one while I was walking on the walkway along the Sumida.

Nerdtour 2018 Japan – Evening on the Sumidagawa

Just a few pics I took wandering up the Sumidagawa Monday evening:

Nerdtour Japan 2018 – Birthday washout…

Well, I was here in Tokyo for fireworks on my birthday, but Nature conspired to send a typhoon my way, which forced Tokyo to delay the fireworks. It wasn’t a total washout, I did manage to celebrate by going to Akihabara, which turned out to be much closer to my apartment than I originally thought, only a couple of stops on the subway. The fireworks will go off today, Sunday, but I had already made other plans for this evening, so I’ll end up going to one of the other Tokyo fireworks displays they have over the next couple of weeks.

Some pics from the last few days:

Kamakura fireworks Tuesday

Kiyosumi garden:

Akihabara on my birthday:

Nerdtour 2016 Japan: Day 2, discovering exhaustion amongst the blooms…

After walking around a whole lot Wednesday (about 7 miles total), Thursday was not a “wake up at 5 AM” day. I barely woke up when the alarm went off at 7:30, after having fallen asleep Wednesday night about 9:30, so I decided to put the “Do not disturb” sign out and start into working on yesterday’s blog post and sorting through the day’s photos. I made it pretty far, but as the morning wore on I discovered that I could either blog about my experiences, or I could actually go out and HAVE experiences to blog about!

So, I set out to find more places that should have cherry trees in bloom. According to promotional literature, the Sumida Park area near Asakusa was supposed to have a bunch of famous trees planted by one of the shoguns a long time ago, so I decided to set off for there. Fortunately it was a relatively straight shot from my hotel, so at the end of the Asakusa Line, I came out into Asakusa proper, which is just across the Sumidagawa River from the newest “big thing”, Tokyo Sky Tree. Sky Tree is the tallest structure in Japan, and is one of the tallest structures in the world (tallest non-office tower, I think). I plan to go there on this trip, and take pictures from the observation decks, over 1000 feet up. I will find out if alcohol defeats acrophobia, or, how much sake will it take to get me to stand on the “glass floor”.

I soon discovered from the map that Sumida Park actually sits on both sides of the Sumidagawa, so I crossed over one bridge to the east shore, and took in the views from that side. The part on that side had one wide “park” area, which was wide open, but the main part is a narrow strip right along the river, where people gathered in groups for “hanami”, or “cherry blossom watching.” This is basically an excuse for companies to let their employees gather in groups to drink, eat, drink, socialize, drink, and build camaraderie with their fellow workers, while sitting on tarps (traditionally blue) under the cherry trees. And drink. Other groups are made up of old friends, college students (drinking age is 20), and families.

That day there were also continuing “matsuri” or festivals along the banks, where you could buy grilled chicken on a stick, or various other kinds of snack foods, along with beer. I forgot to mention that the headquarters of Asahi Beer Ltd. is right there near the Sumida Park, so they were kind enough to provide lots of beer for sale. Near one of the booths I struck up a conversation with two of the people standing around, a man and his wife. I say “struck up a conversation” but I really mean “exercised my minimal Japanese while actually understanding and being understood about 30% of the time”. It was fun, and we three had a good time for a few minutes, while I rested for a bit before moving on.

I crossed the “Sumida Friendship Bridge” and continued on back down the Park towards Asakusa. I got to see some of the tour boats and “dinner boats” that cruise up and down the Sumidagawa, which are very interesting and which go back a couple hundred years into Tokyo history (not the current boats, obviously, but the idea of them). Once I got back to the Asakusa area, I stopped to eat a huge bowl of soba noodles and a “katsudon”, which is a bowl of rice topped with a fried, breaded pork cutlet. The noodles came in a huge bowl at least 8 inches across and 3 deep, with miso broth. The katsudon was almost as big, so between them the meal was probably about 2 pounds of food, all for 720Â¥, which is about $7. The secret to saving money in Japan is to eat where the locals eat, not where the tourists eat! There were no tourists there, just middle-aged locals who came in for a quick meal.