Edo

  • Gifted With A Glorious Walk

    Not being overly busy and blessed with sublime weather, I got to take a walk around the office neighborhood in the central Tokyo district of Marunouchi, and it was simply spectacular. The skyscrapers were breathtaking and I loved the way they basked in the spring sunshine. Lots of pocket gardens were also little delights amid the concrete jungle, including one patch of Aussie plants. And the remarkable kubizuka (grave) of Taira no Masakado also provided a tremendous history lesson of the world’s biggest city, having started as the small fishing village of Edo.

  • Stumbling Across A Shogun’s Stimulator

    Just a few weeks ago I was extremely surprised to learn there is a monument to WIilliam Adams located just a few minutes from my workplace as I thought after nearly 40 years of life in Japan I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about the Briton who was made a samurai and inspired a shogun. The monument to Adams, the first English person to go to Japan in the late 1t6th century, is tucked away between a couple of buildings in Nihonbashi, the central Tokyo district from which all distances in Japan are mentioned. Adams is known to the Japanese as Miura Anjin and the…

  • Springing Into Action

    After an interminably long wait, it finally got warm this week, prompting me to spring into action. It was hard to believe that just last week Tokyo got blasted with heavy snow. Short sleeves and shorts were the watchword, even for typically well-covered types such as Mrs. Kangaeroo. Even though she notoriously feels that anything under 35 degrees Celsius is cold, even Mrs. Kangaeroo was walking around on Friday night in short sleeves due to the delightfully warm weather. My aches and pains eased a little with the warmth, too, which made it a bit easier to be mobile. It allowed me to work in the garden a little. Mrs….