Japan: Day 3 - gardens, temple, museum

Another big day today. This post will provide a brief overview, and I may put more detail and more of the pictures into a sub-post. [Eh, I'll just provide Wijipedia links - Ab] (I'm having trouble controlling where the new camera focuses, so these pics aren't entirely up to my standard. They should give you a sense of it all though.)

We walked to Em's place through the very pretty Arisugawa Park, and then the five of us piled into a taxi (not strictly legal, but only one cab refused us).

Arisugawa Park

"Attention: Children eat lunch here, so please don't bring your dog into this area."

Our first destination was the Hama-rikyu Gardens, on the waterfront. This is a large traditional Japanese garden, dating back the Edo period, but finalised in its current design at the time of the 11th shogun (?1700s). Amongst its attractions are a 300 year old pine, and a pretty floating teahouse, in the middle of one of the ponds.

300 year old pine (front view), with annoying tourists in the way

Three hundred year old pine (side view)

'Floating' tea house. The contrast between the tranquil traditional and the steel-and-glass modern is stark.

Another cab took us to the Zojo-ji Temple on the edge of Roppongi, which dates from 1393, and the same family (Tokugawa) as the Hama-rikyu Gardens. Like the gardens, it has suffered multiple destructions, and the current buildings are actually fairly recent. We couldn't go in, as there was a private function going on, but instead outside we watched a little of a Bugaku performance (dates back 1400 years).

Buddist temple, with Tokyo Tower just behind it

We got suckered into buying some insanely expensive candy

You put your left foot in ...

We lunched at a French/Belgian cafe next door, enjoying beautifully presented open sandwiches called Tartines.

Prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, sundried tomato and pesto tartine.

One more cab, into Roppongi Midtown and the 21_21 Design Sight gallery to see an exhibition targeted at primary school students, called Design-Ah! As it's still school holidays, the place was pretty crowed, but it had some fun exhibits. Em left us here, and we made our own way back by train (Roppongi is the next stop up from our station).

Hirigana for "ah"

Furoshiki (art of wrapping) beginners tutorials

Pouring soy sauce

We're now in our larger apartment, clearly two smaller ones linked together (two bathrooms, two sinks etc), which is great except that it absolutely reeks of cigarette smoke. Fortunately, it's a lovely day, so we've got every window in the place open, trying to air out the stink. It's bad enough that our trench coats still stink of smoke from last night, and the wardrobes here are unusable for the moment.

Later, Em's going to take us out to Shibuya to gawk at the storeys-high TV screens.