So, Wednesday morning broke nice and clear, except for the dust blowing over Tokyo from China, but otherwise the day started nice. I decided I would walk around the neighborhood a bit, to see if I could see any cherry trees blooming along the Sumida River, which is about a quarter-mile from my apartment. I made my way down to the riverbank, which has a park and walkway all along the river on both sides, and started north.
After walking for a while, I found that I was very close to one of the city’s parks, Kiyosumi Gardens. I decided to go ahead and check out the park, which is a nice, well laid-out Japanese garden, with hundreds of interesting rocks from all over Japan, and some wildlife in the form of birds and turtles, as well as hungry koi fish in the large pond/small lake. They charge a small admission fee, and I was able to finagle the senior rate, which was 70 yen, or about 45 cents! Who says Japan is expensive! 🙂 Sadly there were no cherry blossoms, but there were some flowering bushes, not sure what kind though.
After strolling through the park for a while, making a full circuit of the paths, I decided to get some lunch, and on my way out the gate I saw a Denny’s down the block! Unfortunately, at 1:30 PM they had a lot of people waiting, especially families, so I changed my plans and started walking down the street. I ended up going into this little ramen shop and having a big bowl with a side of rice and pickled cabbage. The ramen had a piece of pork so well cooked it practically fell apart in my chopsticks, and the noodles were cooked just firm enough, and the broth was really really good and salty.
Sadly, I didn’t take any pictures of the shop or the food, I didn’t ask permission and I didn’t want to be one of “those” tourists and act like I owned the place, so you’ll have to use your imagination. It was a whole universe better than any cup ramen you might have had, though!
From there, my trek took me on a subway ride to Shinjuku to the apartment office to tell them of a maintenance issue I had, and then back to Monzennakacho on a different train line. When I got back to the apartment I checked my health app on my phone and found that I had walked over 5 miles! I hadn’t intended to walk quite that far on my first day, but thankfully I have been working up to it over the past year or so.
Anyway, that’s all for Wednesday! I took Thursday off so I could get these pictures ready!