SAKURA-Cherry Blossom

The season of cherry blossoms has come:)

I visited some famous spots in Tokyo last week.

Firstly, let me share some photos of Chidorigafuchi.

This is located in the northwest of the Imperial Palace,

The 700 m-long pedestrian path was covered with the blossoms of about 260 cherry trees of different species.

Despite the fact that we visited on Monday, the waiting time of the boat was two hours.  We gave up riding a boat and headed to the next destination, Shinjuku Gyoen.

Here is also a representative spot for cherry blossom viewing in Tokyo.

We had to wait for 15 minutes to enter the gate...

Shinjuku Gyoen is a huge park, but was crowded with lots of people...

In Japan, you can enjoy cherry blossoms anywhere.

It is common that they are planted as street trees, like this.

I took a walk along the river of my neighborhood in the evening.

The cherry blossoms glow with the setting sun:)

There were few people in this park .

I could get this beautiful view all to myself:)

Thank you for dropping by!

Old & Historical Town in Tokyo...Asakusa / Ryogoku

Guess what this tower is? 

The answer is "Tokyo Skytree", the world highest broadcasting tower (634m) .

We had a lunch at a French restaurant right next to the tower.

Let's have a good meal before we set to walk around !

Today, I want to share several photos of strolling around historical area in Tokyo:)

Leaving the Tokyo Skytree, we reached Asakusa area. It took about 20 minutes by walk.

The gold building is a head office of a brewing company. It represents a glass of beer.

The shape of the top floor looks like beer foam:)

The gold object next to the beer shaped building represents fire.

Here we got to the Senso-ji, a temple in Asakusa, built by Empress Suiko in 628. 

This "Kaminari-mon" is the most famous gate to Senso-ji, 

Asakusa Nakamise Shopping Street has many shops where you can buy lots of different kinds of souvenirs.

SEE THERE!!!

Someone is on a roof !?

Watch out for "Ninja" being about to jump down, ahaha...

Let's take a ferry to the next destination:-)

We arrived Ryogoku just in time to the game!

Guess what game we would watch!? :)

It was a..... 

"Sumo Wrestling"

Sumo is the traditional sport in Japan. Two Sumo wrestlers fight in a ring.

A wrestler wins if he forced his rival out of the ring.

Just before the game, the Sumo wrestlers  throw salt to purify the ring, as a traditional practice.

They have their hair tied up in a certain style, called "Oicho". 

Oicho requires the wrestlers to glow their hair down to their shoulders.

They wear a silk belt, called "Mawashi", which is 10 meters long and weighs about 5 kilograms. 

To preserve more than 1500-year-old history, various restrictions are required in addition to having a game.

To be a Sumo wrestler, you must be at least 173cm tall and weigh 75 kilograms.

 There was a wrestler who even had surgery to put silicon on the top of his head, as he was a little shorter than 173cm. And he passed the admission test, became a strong wrestler despite of his small body for a Sumo wrestler :) 　

Unfortunately he retired about 15 years ago, yet he has become a legend of Sumo:) 

Why don't we watch his amazing performance a little bit? :-)

In the Tokyo Skytree area, we experienced the cutting-edge technology. On the other hand,  in Asakusa and Ryogoku, we enjoyed Japanese history.  We had a really fun day:-)

Thank you for stopping by!

Garden having a story

I visited a cafe in a suburbs of Paris... 

This is called "Rose Cafe".

A daughter of an owner has taken over the business, lately.

She is 23 years old and graduated from a fashion, art and design school, Marangoni, a couple of months ago.

She had not been interested in a cafe, but decided to take over the business from her old parents... 

JUST A MOMENT !!!  

Have you noticed something weird in the following photo??

Steel frames are coming out in the sky !?

Ahaha...

I haven't been to Paris, sorry!

I went to "International Roses & Gardening Show" held in Seibu Prince Dome, a baseball stadium, 1-hour train-ride from Tokyo. 

It consists of a lot kind of sample gardens, and the theme of this year is "Paris".

He is a designer of this garden, and told us how they created this wonderful garden:)

Firstly, he constructed a story about an old cafe in Paris, run by old elderly couple.

What struck me by surprise, was that the story was built to the last detail, like a movie. 

For example, the chairs and benches here have each story.

 A. Old Retired Couple's Seats

Every morning, a retired old couple spends time having coffee here.

Drawing on a cigarette, the former owner, old man talked to his wife cheerfully,

 "She (his daughter) got her love of flowers from her mother, you. But now,  her passion for plants has far exceeded yours."  They seem to be  happy that their daughter has taken over their cafe...

 B. Young People's Table

This table is for a group of young people. They always talk a lot about their dreams, here...

C. Housewife's Seat

Having done the housework, a housewife stops by this cafe every afternoon.

Having an order of a usual cafe-au-lait, she starts reading, here.

D. Lover's Bench

This bench is for a young couple who appear every evening.

This corner sits back from the front garden, so, they can have a private conversation:-) 

"Setting a story line will make you enter into your garden emotionally." The designer said.

At the lover's bench, the boy is about to give some gift to his girlfriend...

The white box at the bottom right of the above photo is a decorative gift made of cray.

As seen above, you can select decorative goods based on the story. 

Having seen this sample garden, I want to rebuild my garden with plot, like this!

Imperial garden

 Believe it or not, this was my first time to visit here.

Despite the fact that it's located about 5 minite-walk from a company where I worked for before...

Its garden has huge land, we can enjoy a lot of rose hips this time of year...

This is Imperial garden, located in the center of Tokyo.

Of course, they still preserve those old wooden buildings, gatekeeper's lodge,  from Edo-era.

Here is maybe the famous sightseeing spot behind Kyoto among foreign tourists;)

 

 

After strolling around the park, we walk to Ginza, the most famous entertainment district in Tokyo.

 

 

What we ate in a good restaurant in Ginza was... 

 

 

Dry fish, called "Hokke", a typical home cuisine in Japan... AGAIN. Because whenever we get together in a restaurant, he (on the left in the above photo) defintely orders "Hokke", ahaha...