Saturday we started by going to a park very near our hotel, just by the river. This is the view with my back to the river. Surrounded by skyscrapers! This is the business district. The park was very busy. There were a lot of people out painting views, I am guessing 30 or 40. And many more people just walking and taking photos.
Ueno Park of Friday was brown and dusty. This one is green, full of trees. Although the Japanese seem unable to leave a tree alone, especially if it is a pine tree. You can see some of the pruned trees in the photo.
Another view of the park. This time showing the famous tea house. This lake was teeming with fish.
There were a lot of these flowers in the park. It had a paeony garden and an azalea garden as well as a flower field which was full of rudbeckia and cosmos but a bit past it.
Then we took the train over to the Imperial Gardens, which are immense. No flowers there although there would be azaleas in season. Every tree there is pruned into shape. We saw the Imperial Palace from a distance and there are very substantial walls round the palace which they have incor-porated into the garden. The bit we were allowed into, although large, is about 10% of the Palace grounds.
These gardens are a big green space in the middle of th city. In fact the Japanese are very fond of greenery and everywhere you look, there are trees, in any spare corner, in front of office blocks, lining the streets. One street had gingkos!!
We walked a few blocks to Ginza which is the Bond Street of Tokyo and we were heading for the department stores when we came across one called WAKO. In their windows they had a beautiful handwoven kimono so we had to go and see. On their top floor they were having an exhibition of kimonos and kimono lengths by a weaver called Akiko Shimizu. It was all died in natural dyes and warp and/or weft ikat. beautifully done. A kimono cost about £7000.00 and a kimono length about £4000.00. And I saw one being sold!! I did not feel I could take photos but managed to acquire a leaflet which I will scan in when back home. What a treat.
We spent the next few hours pottering about, not buying anything, until Ruth took me to a paper shop she knew of. Amazing place called ITOYA. 9 floors of paper and one devoted to paper for book binding. I have bought Japanese paper for making books often and there several places you can buy it in the UK but it all comes from one source. They had that - but they had a lot of other varieties as well so I had to have some. It has been wonderfully wrapped up and I am not undoing it until I get home so will post photos then. Eventualy returned to the hotel at 1730 having left at 1030.
are delicious, a sort of stuffed pancake. Now off to go people watching.
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