Rainy day in Nezu

It was forecast to rain today but my wife and I decided to go to 根津神社 (Nezu Shrine).

I’ve written posts about this shrine before when we’ve gone there on sunny days and during festivals.

When we left our house the weather was sunny and warm. It was hard to believe that the TV weatherman said it would rain in the afternoon.

At lunchtime the weather was still nice, so we stopped at a convenience store and bought some beer and sandwiches and ate lunch in a park not far from the shrine.

After lunch we headed to 根津神社 (Nezu Shrine) as the sky was turning dark and the temperature began to drop.
It was a good thing that we brought our umbrellas because it began to rain hard as we were leaving the shrine.

Here are the photos that I took:

These turtles were cute…but our turtle is cuter! 😉

I think this bird was a type of 「白鷺」 (Egret).

The torii at the entrance to 根津神社 (Nezu Shrine).

Japanese lamp.

Sign says 「根津神社」 ("Nezu Shrine")

A row of over 150 "torii".

Click here to see my post with a video I took while walking through these.

勤労感謝の日

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, today is the Japanese holiday 「勤労感謝の日」 (Labor Day).

And also, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, we went to the park together today. We enjoyed the time together outdoors in the nice weather by playing ball and having lunch.

It was a nice day.

A few photos I took in the park:

パンジー

Autumn leaves

The weather today in Tokyo was mostly sunny and 14°C. The weather was nice for the entire three-day weekend.

How about where you live? What did you do this weekend? How was the weather?

Flowers

My daughters have final exams at school next week, so they’ve been studying hard these days.

So, my wife decided to go out today together and let them stay home alone to study.

We didn’t go far nor for long. My wife prepared lunch for the four of us (my youngest isn’t home…she’s currently on a ski-trip in 新潟 (Niigata). Click here to read about that.), we ate lunch together…then we left them to study. We were back before dinner.

We went on a bicycle ride to a nearby park and had a beer together and talked for awhile.

There were a number of trees with 寒桜 (Kanzakura)…which is a type of Sakura cherry-blossom that blooms in colder weather (earlier than other cherry-blossoms):

And 梅 (Plum Blossoms):

And here’s pictures of 水仙 (Daffodils) that were there:

一番好きな花は何？ (What’s your favorite flower?)

Mine is 「ハエトリグザ」 (Venus Flytrap). Is that a flower? No?
OK, then, I’d say my favorite is 桜 (Sakura cherry blossoms).

Empress Of Japan’s Birthday

Yesterday was the 74th birthday of the Empress of Japan.

As the Emperor and Empress always do on their birthdays, she released a birthday statement.
She said that she’s pleased by the healthy growth of her four grandchildren (ages 2, 6, 13 and 16…the three oldest are girls—which was cause for concern about the future heir to the throne…until Prince Hisahito was born in 2006).

The Empress made special mention of six-year old Princess Aiko starting 小学校 (Elementary School) this year.

She also said she hopes the lives of the survivors of last summer’s big earthquake in 岩手県 (Iwate, Japan) are back to normal soon.

And she offered congratulations to the Japanese who earned Nobel Prizes this year…and well as to the Japanese Olympic athletes who won medals in this year’s Olympics.

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Also in the news, the last living survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic had to auction off her memorabilia so that she could pay her nursing home fees.

She was a newborn baby with her parents and older brother on the Titanic when it sunk. She and her mother and brother were rescued but her father died in the ship’s sinking.

She’s 96 years old now.

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On Sunday, we went to a 健康祭 (Health Festival).

Here’s a video I took at the festival of some older people doing a traditional Japanese dance:

At the park that the festival was at, there were many バラ (roses) in bloom.

There were many ducks in the park’s pond. They must get fed by people often, because they kept rushing over to people.

Here’s a couple videos of them:

This was a very friendly cat that we saw near the park:

I like cats (and dogs too). But probably not as much as this man we saw:

On the way home, we stopped at this 八百屋 (Produce Store):

Next to the 八百屋 (Produce Store) was a small general store.

That’s a Japanese broom next to the door.

And here’s a close-up of a drink 自動販売機 (vending machine)…it sells Coca-Cola® hot and cold tea and coffee, as well as other drinks:

A とんぼ (dragonfly):

On the way home, we stopped by Daiso (you can see another post of mine in which I wrote a bit about Daiso here).

Here’s a short video I took inside Daiso:

Bike ride…

Yesterday we went on a bike ride to a park not too far from our house.

At the park, my kids caught 蛙 (frogs) and 蝉 (cicadas).

They’re girls and they’re teenagers…but they’ll still go out with their parents. And they still wanna catch bugs.
I’m glad! As their father, they’ll never grow up…in my mind!

Here’s a video of my second daughter holding a couple of 蝉 (cicadas) she caught. At the end, she asks me 「もういい？」 (“Enough?”):

There’s a Japanese style garden at the park.

(A wooden lantern)	(Looking thru a stone lantern)

Here’s a couple of shots of the river near the park:

And here are a couple of videos that I took of trains going over the bridge:

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One the way home from the park we stopped at 「ザ・ダイソー」 (“The Daiso“) for a couple things.

Do you know “The Daiso” (usually just called “Daiso”, or 百均 (Hyakkin (which is an abbreviation for 百円均一 (Hyakuenkinitsu), or 百円ショップ (¥100 Shop))?

There are other ¥100 shops…and even a ¥99 shop. But Daiso is almost synonymous with ¥100 shop.

Daiso is basically the Japanese version of the American One Dollar Store. (¥100 is almost equal to US$1)…but Daiso sells better merchandise. Better quality and more useful.

So, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to learn that they’ve expanded overseas.

There are now Japanese Daiso stores in Korea, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, and the west coast of Canada and America (among other countries)!

Here’s the Daiso website.

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It’s obvious by their manners…but now it’s official:
Japanese travelers are the best tourists.