20.03. 2013 - shinjuku gyoen

     I spent this afternoon enjoying the cherry blossoms at Shinjuku Gyoen.

It's been a very early spring, apparently, so these are something like a fortnight earlier than normal.
It was really lovely, even though I was not the only person to think of going there today, it was packed!

I saw something like 2 dozens ravens too, which always makes me feel good because I love ravens.
Fun fact right there.

Admittedly, the bit that was fun for me was taking photos of all the other people taking photos of the flowers, because I like creepy hobbies.

But firstly here are some of the flowers themselves! There are a fair few different kinds, plus I think some were plum blossoms? I'm honestly not sure.

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And when I saw this fellow I felt like the world was smiling upon me.

He had a rather large audience and japanese & foreign alike seemed to be equally amused.

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And now onto my favourite hobby; taking photos of strangers without them knowing.

Like stalking, but with less of a point.

Due to the lens I had on, it's really impossible to tell if I'm taking a photo of a pretty little flower or someone off in the distance with a camera.

Perfect.

 

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There you go! 

I hope you have a good today and a pleasant tomorrow.

Signe

06.04.2013 - Yushima Tenjin Shrine + Bunkyo Civic Centre

Hello all!

I know I broke my, oh so sincere, promise of a blog post a day. But! I have lots of great excuses. 

1) my foot was really injured!

2) I had to practice for & take my shodan (first degree black belt) test! (Which I passed)

3) I was tired?

Today I decided to go to Yushima Tenjin Shrine, which is well known for it's Ume (plum) blossoms.

Plum blossoms bloom a few weeks before cherry blossoms, so they signal the beginning of spring in Tokyo.

They (apparently unlike cherry blossoms) smell really good, so the whole shrine smelled like perfume and looked to nice and it was 20 degrees today and it was awesome.

there was some sort of oragami display going on there.

lady with a trained monkey!

 

Yushima Tenjin enshrines the god of education, so all these are messages/prayers from students who want to pass the entrance exams into good universities in Tokyo (or anywhere)

 

The paper cranes are for extra luck!

And then, since I was already in Bunkyo (that's one of the 23 wards of Tokyo) I decided to head over to the Bunkyo Civic Centre as the promised me a good view of Tokyo.
And since I got these late-ish I decided to stay to enjoy the sunset!

Unfortunately for me it was a pretty overcast day which means the sunset wasn't outstanding and I couldn't see Mount Fuji, which is roughly where the sun was going down.

Tokyo SkyTree is now one of the few observation desks I haven't been to.

Between when that photo was taken the the sunset I went down to the ground floor and looked around and art gallery where a lovely old Japanese man followed me around and translated all the descriptions for me, which made me experience all the better!

Came back upstairs to this.

And then to round of a great day I stopped my the Hombu Dojo and picked up my certificate!