Yesterday, R. and I went to Koishikawa Park (小石川後楽園) in the middle of Tokyo, near Tokyo Dome, for an afternoon picnic. It was a holiday weekend, so the place was packed. Actually, I’m not sure that it wouldn’t be packed on any normal weekend either, but since it is also the time of the year when the fall leaves turn colors there were lots of people there. We bought boxed lunches at a nearby convenience store, and some beer, and headed out to the park. It is a really beautiful place, just amazing that a park like that can be hidden away amid the skyscrapers and bustle of Tokyo. There are lots of parks like this really. They are medium sized, but seem much larger than they are due to creative landscaping.

Check out the Flickr Set for all the photos but generally I think that things looked really nice. The leaves are turning some nice colors, and I really like the mix of traditional park with modern backdrops: Tokyo Dome and tall buildings in particular are interesting to me.

While we were eating on one of the benches there was a Bunraku (Japanese traditional puppetry) show on a small stage erected for the event. I would have liked to watch it, but the place was packed and I couldn’t see a thing. I did get a decent picture though.

After lunch while we were walking around I saw a woman in a Kimono, and asked if I could take her picture. She was pretty surprised, but called her friend over (who I hadn’t seen) so I ended up with a nice shot of two women in Kimono. Nice! Also, it is amazing how many people were taking pictures with camera phones. There were people with crazy big lenses on DSL cameras, but more people with crazy small cameras taking pictures also. My new phone also has a high resolution camera (5MP, more than my point and shoot 4MP camera camera, but the pictures on the phone are really bad at anything more than 2MP.) My new phone actually has two cameras on it, which I find really funny. My camera doesn’t have two phones on it.

Anyway, I don’t have much more to write about the picnic: it was a nice break in the middle of the city. There are lots of little parks like this – I’ve been to Shinjuku Gyoen before, Hamarikyuu park, and the central park equivilent as well. I enjoy finding new places liket his though. I’m going to have to spend more time walking around my new apartment and find out what we have in this area.

The leaves are really starting to take on nice colors, and pretty soon it will be winter. I’m not looking forward to the cold winters, but they beat the nasty summers.