At the Kameido shrine

It's wisteria blossom time at the Kameido shrine downtown Tokyo, and since Kameido is all about wisteria it is also the best time for a yearly festival.

This is the shrine in winter time (photo downloaded from internet). The gate, two beautiful red arched bridges leading to the shrine itself further down the path, large ponds where tortoises swim around. Wisteria trees are underneath the grids which will support the flowers in spring. The design of the shrine is quite ingenuous with the crisscross of alleys, bridges, ponds, trees, all crammed into a tiny space.

I visited Kameido a few years back and I knew it would be that crowded. It's a classic Tokyo festival moment, you need to be prepared to face the crowd, there is just no way around it.

Wisteria lucky charms.

Attempting to cross the first bridge. Needless to say, VERY slowly.

From the top of the bridge, the Tokyo Skytree, newest and tallest icon in the landscape surrounding the shrine. Can you see the tortoises sunbathing?

Looking back…

Looking forward….

The flowers were beautiful of course, very fragrant too, but starting to bloom out. The best viewing time must have been last week.

Patting the holy cow :-)) 

(that guy made his dog pat the cow too, I don't know what that was all about)

The second, smaller bridge.

And you already know what's missing. Food stands! Too many to take pictures of everything.

Gathering for a performance. Of what, I don't know, I left the premises before it started. This was a very nice afternoon out.

Mito Kairakuen - Part 4: Queues

It's been more than a month since plum blossom, so let's wrap up Mito Kairakuen. Since this is Japan the garden comes with its shrine (you can see one of the tree shops in the background) and of course the shrine comes with its queue :-)

Just beside the shrine, more food stands. Mito is famous for nattō, which there was plenty of.
(More natto images, just for fun…)

One of the rare queues that wasn't about food. Waiting to get the chance to get your photo taken with the characters of Mito Kōmon, the longest standing Japanese TV drama in history.

While standing in line you can listen to the soundtrack of the series (yes it's coming out of that plastic "machine" inside that plastic bag) :-)) So much for Japanese high tech.

Of course we did it :-))

Mito Kairakuen - Part 3: Bento, tea and flowers

Time to sit down and have lunch with this bento box bought at the entrance of the garden. It's going to be Gyudon (beef bowl) today.

A few meters away, free beverage. I say beverage because I don't know exactly what it was. I've had it before and I almost spat it out because I expected tea but it was more like a salty sour seaweed broth. Not fab.

The free green tea stand. Ah, that's much better, thanks!

Those babies have just been watered, and yaay, we've found the bonsai shop!

So beautiful and very hard to resist. Bao Zhen and I both adopted one of those. Well, one of those at the bottom of the stand, younger and cheaper.

This is Broken on his first day back home. The plum tree's branches are so fragile, I had no idea and was careless, I admit.
Broken did produce very beautiful and fragrant blossoms, though, and he's doing well. One month later and he now has a few more friends to share the balcony with. You can follow their progress here.

Another tree shop.

See you in Part 4…

Mito Kairakuen - Part 1: Entering the garden

A day trip to the garden of Kairakuen with the girls on Saturday. Kairakuen is one of the three major landscape gardens of Japan and is famous for its plum trees, in full blossom this week up north where it is a bit colder than in Tokyo (expecting cherry blossoms very soon).

It is of course a tourist attraction, and Japan knows very well how to make a place attractive to tourists. All the main elements are there and it never fails. The seasonal festival, the "plum sisters" to take photos with, the themed shrine, the food stands, the bento boxes, the games for kids, the souvenir shops.

Those are the stairs and the gate of the shrine, but we'll get back to that later on...

The place looks deserted but this was around 10am before the crowd. It's always so much better to arrive early before the buses.

More food. And we haven't entered the garden yet!

Photographing the Plum Queen?

Each of the 3000 trees of the garden is labeled and numbered, with its name, age, and sometimes additional information. Some trees of particular interest also have their own special name (e.g. Moon Shadow).

Bao Zhen's delicate hands taking a snapshot with her phone. Lucky the weather was gorgeous and the sky gently blue. 

To be continued….