Hama-Rikyu Gardens

After a few false starts that actually worked out rather well, we made it to the Hama-Rikyu Gardens: a shogun family garden/duck hunting bonanza type place in the past, and now something of an oasis sandwiched between the skyscrapers and the port.

[as ever you can click on each image for a larger version]

We ate good food, fed the cat, snoozed, mingled with the wildlife…

and joined the heads bobbing among the flowers.

My botanical knowledge is somewhat lacking, but I’m going to call these chrysanthemums until somebody corrects me.

The chrysanthemums were a fabulous orange.

Also, I think I found what is probably my new most favouritist building. Here are a few photos that don’t even come close to showing why!

massage chairs at Big Camera

I’m sure every one of these people was merely carefully considering the options for a future purchase…

le weekend

The weekend just gone was a long one thanks to the annual holiday Respect for the Aged Day on Monday.

All three days were great: various people taking me to Hama-Rikyu Gardens, Nihon Minka En and to the sumo tournament. Photos to follow shortly and many thanks to all involved for the little extras that made each day a little bit more special than just joining ranks with the other tourists.

izakaya and…

Last night a friend took me to an izakaya.

The amazingly delicious food,

subdued lighting,

and restrained atmosphere,

were followed by a quick game of pachinko:

Welcome to Japan.

lump

Because she is

this week I have mostly been smearing my friend with Vaseline and flicking stuff at her:

photoroundup

A Geidai door; an extraordinarily large baby (how large? this large); a section of roof at Charles de Gaul airport; some small cherry-flavoured desserts that looked really unappetising, not least because they’d probably been sitting around in this claw machine in a 50p shop for a long, long time; the moon, a plane and a hotel; a street scene in rainy Machida; novelty architecture in Ueno; stools in the painting department of Geidai; emerging from Ueno park into the bright lights of the city…

geidai

Yesterday I went to the festival of Tokyo University of Music and Arts (Geidai) in Ueno.
http://www.geidai.ac.jp/english/index.html

Part open day:

…part exhibition:

… part car boot sale:

…and part barbeque and music festival:

a good time was had by all!

The students kept asking me how it compared to festivals in the UK, and I had to say that I’d never seen anything like this in the UK. But then maybe my experiences in Bournville aren’t particularly representative.

I tried asking them what the festival was for and who came etc etc. It seems that many students from all the other Tokyo art universities come to these things, as well as families of Geidai students. In addition to showing and selling some of their work, each department has its own batch of beer and food stalls as well as two or three student bands playing throughout the evening. After which, apparently it is traditional for the students to decide to go for a swim in the pond of the nearby park.

Now that part at least sounds familiar!

orientation

I’m in a different part of Sagamiono compared to where I was last year so this morning I went for a short walk to see what’s what.

I can now confirm that I live above a shop called Dog Style [ed:it’s a pet shop]; next to a fire station (calm down Cath!); and just around the corner from the Co-op (you still get carved up by trolleys in the aisles, but people will bow and apologise profusely whilst they’re doing it!)

Oh, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from, but somewhere close by plays the Westminster chimes over a loud speaker at noon each day. If I remember correctly, this is also what they use at Joshibi University to signal the start and finish of lunch, so I wonder if I’m going to start developing some sort of Pavlovian response to it…

arrived

Not much in the way of excitement between Southampton and Narita, although I did spill my orange juice halfway over the Urals and had to spend the rest of the flight sat on a plastic bag. Classy.

We decided to dive into an Internet cafe on our way back from the supermarket, so I’m currently on a plush black leather(ish) sofa in a small booth amongst many in what seems to be something of a veritable manga emporium. Whilst in the supermarket we met two of the Joshibi students who came to Brum last February and the 2 Finnish exchange students who are just starting their 4 week stint at Joshibi and, it seems, could well have been on the same flight as me this morning!

I don’t didn’t have any of the camera cables with me to upload photos (although I do have 5kg of rice and some fish-cake type things on the sofa next to me) so possibly photos to get added to this at a later stage but I’ve now uploaded a couple of photos.

and so it begins

… or it would do if I’d finished started packing yet.