Ojamashimasu

Dropping in for a bit of afternoon tea in Jiyugaoka, Tokyo. Seeing someone wearing a kimono except for special occasions is not a common site in Japan---at least not in my neck of the woods.

Jiyugaoka Spring

If April showers bring May flowers, we'll be in luck this year since it seems to rain about every day.














Jiyugaoka, a lively little part of Tokyo. Lots of restaurants, small shops, pubs, bars, pachinko parlors, and izakaya(s). A nice place to visit on a dreary, rainy day. Might want to do so early before the crowds and cars arrives as there are few sidewalks, delivery trucks and vans are parked all over the place, and pedestrians must share the road with cars.























Bad weather doesn't stop doesn't stop the mail here.

Sakura

The cherry blossom season this year seems to be a bit longer than usual, perhaps due the the cooler, rainier weather. More time for parties, I guess. In the past, I had considered getting half (or completely) plastered under under cherry blossoms as a waste of time. I am no longer of that opinion.

This was on a cool, rainy, weekday in Denenchofu next to a "kindergarten" across the street from the Denenchofu Private Junior High School for Girls. There was no drinking or partying then, just folks hurrying back to work, or to the grocery store, or picking up their kids from school.

One woman wrote to me that to her, sakura means the start of a new school year. Probably so in Japan as school has just begun.

(Something is actually sharp somewhere in the photo, I think.)