These trees are in Kairakuen garden in Mito which is ranked as one of the top three gardens in Japan.  Not too impressive you may think and certainly not a patch on any random corner of Kenrokuen garden in Kanazawa whose delights I enjoyed in April.

But these are plum trees, a small number of the 3000 or so in the garden which I can well believe present a wonderful sight when they are in blossom.  The Japanese seem to think so because there is a railway station at the entrance to the garden that operates only in the plum blossom season.  The rest of the year trains whizz through without a second glance.

We are not in plum blossom season so I walked to the garden along this pleasant lakeside trail, pleasant but blisteringly hot and tiring so I took care to get a bus back to town.

In the garden I enjoyed a plum soda and a plum cake.  The cake is actually in that little wooden box and was a delicious concoction of cream, sponge, and bits of fruit all dusted in fine icing sugar.

I nearly didn't need any tea that evening, nearly but not quite.  I ate a not terribly Japanese prawn, avocado and pasta dish in a department store restaurant in Mito railway station.  I love Japanese railway stations.  You could more or less live in one; feeding, clothing and entertaining yourself with people watching.  I shared the restaurant with a few groups of schoolchildren in uniform.  I've come across this before, mostly at lunchtime.  Kids having a proper meal rather than a big Mac and chips.  But this was around 7.30 in the evening.  Had the school day just finished or had they been at some after school activity?  Are their parents still at work so won't be home in time to cook a meal, or is this just a social thing that they do every so often?  I think we should be told.

That was yesterday.

I took it easy today, didn't get up till nine, had a leisurely coffee and pastry breakfast, broke my journey to Kamakura in Shinagawa (which is the bit of Tokyo my train was going to) where I had a leisurely lunch before continuing the journey on another train and got here in the middle of the afternoon.

The Kamakura Seizan is the most expensive hotel I'm staying in and it's rather more individual than the faceless international business style that I've stayed in so far.  Not that they haven't been perfectly adequate, just not aesthetically very pleasing.

Not a high rise

Greenery growing through the inside

 Inside the rooms are beautifully finished in wood and stone.

Where I'm writing this post

Sleep station with hotel supplied pyjamas

Kamakura is essentially a small seaside town nowadays but was one of Japan's ancient capitals and has a fantastic history.  It houses what must be one of the world's largest statues of Buddha which I managed to see today just before they closed the temple grounds.  I'm here to see one of its great festivals that includes samurai horseback archery.  Its other interest for me is that one of my favourite Japanese films, Our Little Sister, was shot in the area. 

I'm off to the tourist office first thing in the morning to get the gen on the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gū Reitaisai festival.