After I left the Koishikawa Botanical Garden I decided to just go back to my apartment in Monzennakacho, since walking around and up and down hills basically wore me out. I managed to walk almost 6 miles though!
On my way I decided to stop by the canal downtown, where I have previously gotten pictures at night, illuminated by the lanterns, but I figured there might be something happening with the advertized festival. I wasn’t disappointed, although there wasn’t much going on, I did get to see a few neat things, including the blossoms at almost full bloom, in the daytime!
Even though there wasn’t much at the street level, there were lots of people walking on the paths along the river, and plenty of tourist boats cruising up and down. Some of them were heading out into the Sumida River through the flood gates to join other sightseeing boats, to continue cruising up towards the blossoms in the Sumida Park.
Monzennakacho area of the Koto City portion of Tokyo has a long history of supporting the shipping of goods from Tokyo Bay, which the Sumida flows into, and into Tokyo proper, and as a result, there are lots of canals and modified rivers in this area. There is also a long history of reclaiming land from the Bay, going back to the Shogunate days, when Tokyo was called “Edo”. There are still things in Monzennakacho that remain from those days, or are reflected in modern things styled like the old things. One thing that was a huge problem in the early days was fire, since almost all buildings were made from wood, bamboo, and paper. Fire control was a big part of cities, and fire towers were built in fire station regions, to watch for unexpected smoke rising above roofs, or flames spreading. There were symbols for each fire control region, and even now those symbols are fixed to the tops of streetlights, so people can recognize what fire station’s region they’re in. These all survived the firebombing of Tokyo, or were rebuilt afterwards.
Since boats were so important to Monzennakacho, the town maintains things to remind people of that, some of the tourist boats still follow the same design as the boats used to transport goods and people through town, propelled by one man on a rudder, and on this bridge, they made concrete flower planters in the same shape!
I guess these little touches of history, along with the ease of getting around in the area, makes Monzennakacho the place I always liked to stay when I came to Japan! Oh, and here are a few more blossoms!
