Daily Photo

Today is a public holiday (春分の日, shunbun no hi), marking the vernal equinox. Of course there was nasty cold persistent rain, nevertheless blossomy things are blossoming, such as here at the entrance to Ueno Park.

Night in Tokyo.

Unfortunately my mobile camera is not powerful enough to catch individual drops of rain falling in bad light at night, but it was a very wet evening, to the point I had to dodge into a random girlie fashion shop on Takeshita-dori to protect myself and more importantly the contents of my rucksack from getting too wet.

And today the view from the front of the new office, taken from the balcony (aka smokers' refuge). Looking in towards Osaki.

Must say I like the whole area much more than Tennozu Isle; once you're away from the soulless main road, it's quite a nice neighbourhood - in fact if you wanted to make a film about late Showa-era Japan, it would be an excellent spot, as going down some streets made me feel like I'd stepped back a couple of decades in time.

View from the window of the gents' facilities at the new office (taken with the mobile phone, hence the lousy picture quality).

Turned up nice and early (actually hitting the Yamanote Line during the rush hour), anticipating there being lots of Stuff To Do, and no-one was there...

Strolling over to Omotesando to soak up some spring sunshine and also to enter into a complex dialogue with the Citibank ATM machine which usually ends in me giving it a little ironic bow, I couldn't help noticing an abundance of tricolours, and assumed some Irish bigwig was in town. The sight of some slightly inebriated non-Japanese of European extraction bearing cans of happôshu gave me an important hint as to what might be up, and being of a quiet, contemplative nature I struck Irish Pubs of all kinds off the list of possible places to spend the evening.

Spontaneous, company-sponsored lunch at T.Y. Harbor Brewery (review from bento.com here; lunch was much better value than the dinner prices indicated there, but be prepared to wait for a table) on Tennozu Airu. Made a nice change from the usual convenience store cuisine.

(Incredibly, despite being a brewery, beer didn't seem to be an option on the lunch menu).

No cherry blossom in sight in Tokyo yet, but the oranges are certainly out in force.