A Few Grey Leaves Left

Walking along the river at Nakameguro.  It’s lovely even when the cherry blossoms are not blooming.  There are only a few grey leaves left on all the cherry trees.  The water is shallow and seems almost clear enough to drink.  And over dinner my friend mentioned that he’d met someone who grew up here in the 1970s when it was an open sewer.  Of course it was.  It would have had to have been, when Japan was building itself up as an industrial power, twenty five short years after the war’s devastation.

The air is so clear and the horticulture is lovely.  My Yamanote line JR train stops for a moment at Harajuku Station and there is a wall of green ivy and otherwise manicured vines and branches that have been shaped into a wall that forms the boundary of the park that holds the Meiji Shrine.  The train drops me off in Shinjuku, which I don’t normally visit and I note the way the word sounds on when repeated by the automated voice at the train stop.  I compare it in my mind to what the Chinese characters would sound like in Mandarin. 

There’s a walk now.  My friend wisely told me to follow the west exit.  Shinjuku is enormous but I submit to this idea of heading westward until I come upon signs in English that point me toward the hotel I need. I’d been warned but it was a good walk over.  “Ten minutes” isn’t much of a walk when you’re setting out to walk.  But when you’re late . . . every step is a waste. 

Strolling along I noticed two big signs announcing Tokyo as the Olympic city.  The city will opt for a blue geometric circle on a white background.  I note this with only a glance but consider them tasteful in a manner Japanese.  I’m across the street from my destination but I have just missed the traffic light.  Instinctively I take a few photos of the tall buildings around me, and the crosswalk itself, as I wait for the light to change.