a little photo blog

After a few more days in Tokyo, we have seen quite a few places already; although Tokyo really does feel so vast that it seems impossible to be able to know Tokyo as a whole, rather than just seeing a few select places and knowing a piece here and there. It‘s just so much more extensive (impressive?) and multifaceted than any of the cities in Germany… well, it’s also much bigger by the numbers and it shows!

Well, for the photography, it has been a lot of walking around in different areas and varying weather~ So I haven’t taken as many pictures as I expected to, mostly because it was either raining or so crowded that it felt too stressful to focus on anything else than navigation.~

Well, great that there are parks and spacious shrines to compensate the crowded streets! Specifically the Meiji Shrine in this case, which is also one of the main tourist attractions though, so it was quickly crowded as well. Thankfully, it had a garden attached to it, which seemed to have less of an appeal~ admittedly, not in peak form at this time of the year, but still lovely, especially with the little tea house!

As a side note, the shrine had the emperor Meiji‘s „Charter Oath in Five Articles“ (1868) on display, and I found it quite compelling that the translation of one of the articles read: „It shall be ensured that all people […] may […] not lose their spirit for life“.🦫

Anyways, otherwise we also went close to the Imperial Palace, realizing too late that only a guided tour booking can actually bring us to the palace itself, and enjoyed its East National Gardens!

Jimbocho, just a bit north of the vast palace area, is also worth a visit, since it is described as book town; although admittedly most books there are Japanese and/or fairly antiquated (… from what I could see at least), so it’s not necessarily great for actual book shopping.~

It so happened that I came to Japan this week and will spend a little time here! It has also been a couple of days in Tokyo so far but it’s just even more lovely as expected and very enjoyable to walk around and explore everything!

For architecture and all kinds of cityscape pictures, it’s really nice, and one could probably spend weeks just admiring everything!~

But then there is also the parks and the shrines and such! Specifically we have been to the Hamarikyū-Park (浜離宮恩賜庭園), which already has a bunch of blooming plum trees, plus a little cozy tea house! Plus a few pictures from a cemetery for Tokugawa shoguns… plus a little guy at the end.🦫

Close to the cemetery, by the Zōjō-ji (増上寺) temple was also this collection of stone statues with red hats! Very cute, and officially called the „care guardian deities of children“.

I think it’s fair to say that winter had its fair amount of time already and it’s time to move on! At least here in Hamburg the weather was quick to shift from icy, freezing cold to a pleasant warmth, with some sun and some birds chirping, so really more than one can realistically expect from a day in February!

Anyways, I don’t want to raise the expectations too much for some warm, colorful spring scenes, since I haven’t even found time to take pictures yet..!~ First, some last wintery pictures so the brave ducks resisting the freezing cold also get some screen time! Plus, the one thing I did really enjoy this winter was black&white photography, to find some contrasts with the snow (… I guess the world just looked mostly black&white anyways…).

Plus, some moments when there was even some light outside, plus the ducks again of course! I like how the ducks almost look like they’re posing for the camera, which puts a great shame on me for not even feeding them of course… but I was a bit afraid of being chased by a mob of hungry ducks and I doubt I would be able to outrun them (52 km/h!!).– More peaceful of course it the little (…well) pidgeon on the mossy tree, although I’d probably need it as a big print so that they would actually get the recognition they of course deserve, posing on that pretty tree.