Just a few pics I took wandering up the Sumidagawa Monday evening:













A place for things I found…
Well, I was here in Tokyo for fireworks on my birthday, but Nature conspired to send a typhoon my way, which forced Tokyo to delay the fireworks. It wasn’t a total washout, I did manage to celebrate by going to Akihabara, which turned out to be much closer to my apartment than I originally thought, only a couple of stops on the subway. The fireworks will go off today, Sunday, but I had already made other plans for this evening, so I’ll end up going to one of the other Tokyo fireworks displays they have over the next couple of weeks.
Some pics from the last few days:
Kamakura fireworks Tuesday
Kiyosumi garden:
Akihabara on my birthday:
Once we got our keys we headed back to the station and got our respective loads of luggage from the lockers. Â I only recently figured out where the word “luggage” comes from, after lugging around my suitcase and helping John with his 4(!) bags in the heat. Â We were able to make the train, getting on a direct line to Monzen-nakacho, the neighborhood where the apartments are, riding the Metro with wonderful air conditioning. Â Once back outside, we discovered that the taxi stand we were expecting was no longer there, which meant a long, hot, miserable haul of luggage down the street to the apartments, “only” a couple of kilometers. Â Buildings A and B are only 3 floors high, which means there were no elevators, so I had to haul my single suitcase up to my room on the 3rd floor. Â Fortunately the air conditioning worked, and I turned that thing on as high and as cold as I could make it, to bring the apartment temp down to something approaching relief.
After collapsing in a puddle in the lone chair, I turned on the TV to see what was on, and happened on a special program where they were discussing the weather. Â I learned that we had been hauling our stuff around in temperatures over 41 degrees C, with humidities over 50%. Â I don’t know what that made the “heat index”, but 41 C is over 105 F, which is hot all by itself without the added misery of humidity.
At any rate, we survived, and I crashed in my apartment about 9 PM, after getting some drinks, a towel so I could take a shower, and a bit of food at the convenience store down the street. Â That should have been enough hauling around for the week, but no, I had plans for Tuesday…