Saturday11th

Bill set off to visit Mt Fuji by bus but the rest of us decided to stay local. I couldn't face the thought of a four hour return trip on a bus. The rest of us mooched around taking it easy before we headed off to the gardens in Shabashi. I felt a desire to get amongst greenery for its soothing effect on the soul. It required a trip by train of course. We feel like we have spent half our holiday in Tokyo on the trains. They are amazing, efficient and run about every two minutes and we have used them constantly. I usually walk everywhere when I am travelling but here we have not walked from one end of the city to the other. It is too hot and too easy to use the train.  Just before we left Bill appeared. There were no tickets on the bus to Mt Fuji  available! All alternatives would take too long and he wouldn't be able to return on the same day. We should have planned it earlier, though the weather hasn't been good. Mt Fuji is notorious for being shrouded in cloud or haze! David decided to go freelance looking for a festival and so Bill came to the gardens with us.

We arrived at the gardens and found them delightful and relatively empty. They have sea water ponds because they are close to Tokyo bay and adjacent to the river. We saw huge fish leaping out if the water as well as lots of baby eels/ tiny fish skittering across the surface.  There were these amazing old wisterias with trunks the size of trees all twisted and split yet still producing new shoots. There were also Gardeners on ladders trimming the pine trees to maintain their sculptured shape.

In the centre is a tea house where we took a bun and cold green tea. There were leaflets that explained how to drink the tea and though we did not have a tea ceremony as such  we got the gist of it from the instructions.

 

I love the simplicity of these tradional Japanese buildings with their sliding doors and tatami mats. They are so peaceful and gracious. While walking through the gardens you can smell the change in the air quality. It seems so fresh there.  Next stop  Omato-Sando for a last attempt to buy the Comme de Garçon shirt for Ziggy. What an upmarket trend spot this part of Shibuya is. We tried to sit on some benches ouside the Prada shop to eat some sandwiches we had and a young man from Prada asked us to leave! We did but felt quite offended. We laughed about being refugees from Prada. You don't see people eating in the street like that so we were probably offending them too.

No luck in the Comme de Garçon store so we headed over to the Meiji-Jungu shrine the most important in Tokyo. As it turned out thousands of others did too! It was along walk throufpgh two huge Torii gates before we got to the shrine. It was impressive but not compared to those at Hongu and Naichi we thought. 

By now it was past four and we were all tired out. 

We came home and got takeaway for dinner. We were in bed quite early and lights out by 10 pm.