Tokyo Monogatari

Under the Azuma-bashi bridge, between Asakusa and Ryogoku, during sakura-blossom time. Quite a lot of public saké and beer drinking by families and friends, and well, anybody, and gazing at across the Sumida-gawa river towards the soft pink haze of cherry flowers. It's a magical moment between dreary winter and approaching spring new life. The hammer of summer still seems a dream. Meanwhile, two boats appear to be a suicide mission. Perhaps it is the best time and way to go!

Along with your cherry-blossom viewing, take a few of these! Cherry tree leaves have been pickling from the year before to wrap around sweet rice lightly cherry flavored. From Takashimaya's fabled B1 created foods section.

"Colorado Bound" is really not a high-end sports store, but a coffee shop (and pub) in Shinjuku. Still, it made me wish I was bound for those stark mountains and pristine air. But then, I would wish to be "Shinjuku Bound," missing the intensely rich street scenes like this one.

Nishi-shinjuku. Throw out the handy idea of zoning "borders" with the fuzzy reality of "permutations." Does the old and new sit together in resistance or collaboration? Depends on your point of view, I guess.

Tokyo is crowded to an extent that can leave one comotose. Yet, given time, I came to love it. It became not so much an overwhelming megapolois, but a series of smaller townships with common purpose. However, when millions of innocent people have to go somewhere, though, this is what you get.

© 2008. Comments to Patricia Yarrow
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