Snippets

In between the rain:

an afternoon at Nakajima koen

 

An example of how they "prune" trees here... they just lop off the top?

 

Enjoying the times I get to spend with Elisabeth and her chunky thighs and crazy antics.

 

A quick walk before the rain to seishin park on Elisabeth's FIRST birthday. 

 

What becomes of the cherry trees. No cherries!

 

Always making me laugh with her silly expressions. :) 

Gotta love those teeth!

I'd share photos of Elisabeth's little birthday party downstairs (what a debacle baking cakes were! Ack!), but they're on Kevin's phone... yeah, too busy to take "real" photos. Either way, it was a lovely little party with some of our neighbors and we had pizza, chips and cake. :)

So nice that they wanted to celebrate with us. :)

Seishin and Tenjin

After my dad left for Finland, we spent time doing the things I've mentioned in the last two posts of Yurigahara koen (work and plan). 

We had a heat wave pass through, which was amazing and horrible at the same time (lol). 

The lilacs and wisteria began to fade, the dandelions were puffballs and everywhere was covered in willow.

Beautiful to watch it fall from the trees like snow. Hard to capture though!

Seishin riverside park has really grown in and become so lush!

 

After Seishin, we decided to eat lunch at Tenjin-yama koen. Another favorite park. 

The red maple and the orange and red rhododendrons are so intense it's hard to even describe. Or take photos of!

Elisabeth entertained us as we ate. :)

 

...and then she fell asleep and we meandered around the park looking for quiet spots to shit and chat and give her a chance to snooze in peace... harder said than done!

We went and explored a quiet shrine tucked away in a corner of Tenjin-yama. 

The road was lined with blooming lily of valley. 

 

Also, this little variety of iris. 

 

I love how she was sleeping...

The little prayers at the shrine.

 

We sure ended up missing that weather! (it was followed by about 10days of rain!) ick.

Muscari walk

Hello? 

Is anyone there?

I have pictures to share! 

Sorry it's been a while....... a long while. We are now in our last week and after an unintentional hiatus from blogging, I feel the urge to share the backlog of photos! We have been busy cramming in the last things with my dad, busy with lab work (Kevin anyway), busy with planning a business (yeah, I'm nuts I know), and cursing the never ending rain! Argh! Seriously, enough already with the rain!!

So here's a glimpse of the past... It's a picture heavy post and I'm just gonna split this into parts, ok? :) 

My dad and I took the Toho line to the end stop and walked to Yurigahara koen (famed for its lilies) for a fun day of picnics and flower photography. I filled my 16gb memory card up there...and could have taken more! What followed next was devastating. I thought I had transferred the photos to the computer, formatted the card...and realized half the pictures were missing. NIGHTMARE! Kevin was amazing and found a way to recover the images so phew, but now they're on a hard drive he takes to school so ...we're just gonna have to forget about those. GOOD NEWS: we are going to yurigahara tomorrow so I'll take more... and maybe we will have time to compare the difference of 3-4 weeks. ;) 

Long story short (I am so wordy, it's impossible for me to cut to the chase), Yurigahara koen = heaven paradise fantasy land. 

There is a nook of the park called muscari walk. I about died.

Blooming apple trees. Seas of grape hyacinth/muscari. Pockets of tulips. 

Heaven.

Elisabeth was unimpressed. Might be the only time I've questioned whether she's mine. (just kidding ;))

 

 There was an old mill or tower or something that you could go up. We did later...

Such variety of tulips, I loved them all.

 

The park has a little train that goes around it. Cute!

 

 I felt like I was in a Monet.

Also, that guy in my picture. Thanks for not moving. Grr...

 Such color. 

This is the view from the little tower. Nerve wracking to go up the steel spiral staircase since it was narrow and scary. Up top, it's kind of open so I snapped the photos and went down praying no one would come across me since passing on the narrow steps would have been awful. Sure enough, a couple passed me but they weren't quite as terrified as me so they got the narrow end of the step while I hugged the rail. I never knew I was so scared of heights! 

 It was hard to leave and definitely was on the top 5 favorites of places I've been. Maybe even ever.