Friday, May 14, 2010

An afternoon walk along the Tamagawa

I don't know how to describe the weather in Tokyo this year, but I would call it unusual to say the least.

The sky was beautiful yesterday after 2-3 days of wind and some rain which made for some interesting light and conditions. So I took a walk along the now intimate-to-me Tamagawa near my home.Lovers near Shinmaruko bridge.

This young fellow and I kept running into each other---literally.

"I can ride it myself, ma" he decided a little further up the river.

As he continued to ride, I went back to looking for photos in the amazing light.

And as I did, the young fellow with the unjustified-self-confidence circled around to where I was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him approach and then topple off his bicycle-with-training-wheels at my feet.

"Excuse me," I said. He got up and said nothing while looking at me with a bit of concern in his eyes.

"Are you OK?" I asked as I handed him his mother's hat which had dropped out of the basket on the front of his bike.

"I'm OK," he said, relieved that I would not eat him. As I handed him another bag that he had dropped, his mother ran over and said "Thank you" in English.

I didn't know exactly what she was thanking me for, but since such events are never simple matters in Tokyo, I replied, "You're welcome." Thus ended this encounter between the young guy and his ma and the forever-foreigner.

Jogging along the river.

I got back to Denenchofu station a little earlier than planned, and the light was still excellent. In a month or so, there will be one main type of weather. Rain.

2 comments:

Stuart Price said...

If you want to conform to stereotype you should have run off with his bag.................

We have been getting rainier Junes the last decade or so, the rainy season is moving north......

D said...

Naturally, that was my first instinct, but I didn't think I could run fast enough with everything I was carrying.

A Hokkaido with a semi-tropical rainy season is hard to imagine. Hokkaido is sort of the last "Japan fantasy" I have...