Japan Day 15: Fat Cats, Flowers, and Temples.

Fat cats sat in comfort in an unexpected little park in Kitashinagawa, below a little tree in full blossom. The cats were strays who were fed regularly by the Kitashinagawa Association for Coexisting With Stray Cats, neutered, and otherwise free to roam. We were welcome to pat the cats, but not to feed them. While we were there a steady stream of mothers with children and respectably besuited businessmen visited to indulge in a spot of cat-patting.

Going by appearances, life was good for the stray cats of Kitashinagawa.

 

That was at the end of the day: let's start at the beginning.

Before catching through train to Ueno Park we stopped to admire buildings which had been reinforced against earthquakes. Or one of us did, anyway. The other one waited somewhat patiently.

We were going to Ueno Park because the cherry blossom season had officially started and Ueno Park was apparently the place to go to see cherry blossoms. I thought we were clever, going on a weekday to beat the crowds. Tokyo is full if clever people however. And they all had the same bright idea as me, so the park was comfortably crowded, the only problem being that the trees themselves still hadn't received the start-work memo and were being decidedly tardy in the blossom department.

An avenue which would be stunning in a couple of days.

Every blossoming tree drew a huge crowd, everyone strategically positioning themselves to look as if they were the only ones there.

Food stalls lined the walkways, producing enticing smells and spruiking for business. Down by the lake an egret posed for pictures, temples and city buildings cast reflections, and a flotilla of brightly coloured paddle boats crashed (gently) into each other with disturbing regularity.

We bought vending machine drinks, just because we could, and learned an important lesson: use a translation app to work out what you are buying because some surprises are disgusting. I bought a second vending machine drink, and we visited another temple and found another blossoming tree. I took a lot of photos.

That's me being all Japanese with my sun umbrella.

As the afternoon wore away we went home for a break and then spent a happy evening wandering around our neighbourhood, and it was there that we found the fat stray cats graciously accepting pats from strangers. We spent so long wandering, in fact, that we ran out of energy for dinner and made do with foraging at the local corner store which was a sad state of affairs given the plethora of wonderful food at our doorstep and the pressing need to practice my chopstick skills.

Site of the first bridge over the Meguro River. The old timber bridge us long gone, nothing to see here, as historic sites go it was quite underwhelming.

Our street.

And once the lights were on.