I was in Shinjuku on a bit of a shopping expedition when I saw a crowd of people all looking towards this. Well I thought it must do something when the hour strikes - emit flames and smoke or at least wiggle its head about.  Then the traffic lights changed and the crowd crossed the road.

I'd often wondered where Japanese men bought their clothes.  The square footage allocated to men's clothing in any store or shopping mall I'd been in was generally zero.  Occasionally I'd come across a designer level unit or a rap generation low slung jeans shop, not to mention the office suit chains but where was an equivalent to Frasers or M&S or John Lewis?

Shinjuku has shops galore.  There's a very nice park as well but shops is what it's at.  I had it in mind to find a replacement for my much loved red linen jacket bought from C&A in a shopping mall outside Malaga some time in the 90s and now getting a bit tatty.  Mind you it aroused the admiration of a passing Japanese one day who declared it to be a lovely colour.  He was right.

Anyway the stores I ventured into were almost entirely full of designer concessions.  Boss, Paul Smith, Brookes Bros etc.  I did come across some nice jackets and some that were also affordable but something my size was seldom in stock.  I did buy a cheapo jacket from H&M but suffered immediately from buyer's remorse so it's going straight to the Red Cross.

So the upshot is that the Japanese addition to my wardrobe is a ten quid baseball cap from Muji.  Just the thing to wear on a visit to eggslut.

Most of my interest in Japan is in its old buildings and traditional culture but a touch of modernity does not go amiss and Takanawa Gateway City is a prime example of current developments.

Ultra modern though it is it's built on the site of the very first railway built in Japan and there's a beautiful display charting its development in the 1870s.

At the time the railway sat on an embankment and ran along beside the sea.  That area has been since reclaimed.  Some of the stone from the original embankment was rescued during construction and forms part of the landscaping of the area.  You can see it on the left side of the photo below.

From there I walked on to the Bhuddist temple Sengaku-ji in whose grounds are the graves of 47 samurai and their leader Asano. The story is that Asano drew his sword against a chap called Lord Kira within the bounds of Edo castle.  This was frowned upon to the extent that Asano was sentenced to death by seppuku (ritual suicide by cutting one's own abdomen).  I understand that in the compassionate version of this sentence someone stands by with a sharp sword and chops your head off once you've sliced your belly open to spare you further suffering.  Whether that happened in this case I don't know.

Now the 47 followers took this amiss but bided their time and two years later killed Lord Kira and flourished his severed head over the grave of Asano.  They in turn were sentenced to death by seppuku and buried in the same temple as Asano.

When you pay your 500 yen to visit the site you are given a bunch of smoking incense sticks to lay at the graves.

My walks book recommended heading after this to what it said was one of the most beautiful gardens in central Tokyo.  I passed this cupcake shop with its droopy Union Jack on the way.

The garden was closed which annoyed me since I'd toiled up a hill to get there.  Tokyo is quite a hilly city.

No matter.  Close by was a temple whose grounds have been developed by the architect Kengo Kuma (of the V&A Dundee).  Various modern buildings and a pool have been added.  A cool spot lacking the usual little figurines with red bibs and lines carrying prayer chits.  It felt a bit sterile.

I ended this expedition by taking my rest in the shade offered by the nearby hospital grounds.  I might have visited the adjacent Minato City Local History Museum but this being the third Thursday it was closed. 

It was also the day before my departure.  In the evening I met Momo and we went to eat together.  I'd said I'd like monjayaki for dinner.  That's the Tokyo version of okonomiyaki, the Japanese savoury pancake.  The difference is in the batter which is thinner in the Tokyo version.

We arranged to meet in Tsukishima which is monjayaki central.

I'm told there are around 80 restaurants in this street all specialising in monjayaki.  Here's our monja.  Its main constituent was squid hence the dark colouring.

  And here's us

An easy trip to the airport the following day then an interminable flight to London relieved in part by seeing Emilia Perez, an unusual but interesting and enjoyable film and a docudrama about Maggie Thatcher and Brian Walden and a bit of reading.  No sleeping unfortunately, or maybe half an hour after lunch and G&T.

Bit of a delay on the Edinburgh flight.  Got into town on the bus at about 00.15 and staggered to Waverley Steps where I caught the last daytime 16 to Elm Row and pushed my luggage home.

My book of walks that I mentioned earlier suggests that you shift your base every few days and I did that after the Kanda Matsuri.  I moved to an area called Meguro that amongst other things is quite handy for getting to the airport.

I saw this BCC sign on my first wander around but it was a day or so later that I found it pretty much is what it says.  It has a large library and a display of a range of old bikes and promotes cycling.  It was closed when I was nosing around so I had to take photos through the windows which is never very satisfactory but here are a couple of its bikes

Whenever you mention Philippe Starck I think of furniture but he designed more than that and one of his buildings is in Meguro.

Could have been the inspiration for the green tin building in Abbeyhill?

Very green are the grounds of the National Park for Nature Study which is very close to the Starck building.  I spent a while in there enjoying the cool shade and thinking of not very much.  Turtles and toddlers featured.

Almost next door is the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum.  It occupies a beautiful Art Deco building that was the home of Prince Asaka who had lived in Paris for three years and commissioned the house from a French architect Henri Rapin in 1933 on his return to Japan.

The exterior is quite plain but the decor inside is lovely.  Unfortunately you're not allowed to photograph much.

There were also a European style garden and a Japanese style garden in the grounds, both very pleasant.

The exhibition that was on was of graphic design from Germany which I was free to photograph as much as I liked but I wasn't that fussed.  This one caught my eye though because it was advertising amateur theatre.  Like a lot of the other material it was not very current but maybe it wasn't meant to be.

Homing in on what was performed the British contribution was satisfyingly Scottish in its choice of playwright but an odd choice of play.

On my way out I found they had a restaurant and this being 12.30 I though I mighht have lunch before moving on.  The sign said lunch 11.00 to 12.30 and 13.00 to 14.30.  Right enough they'd cleared out the customers and were resetting tables.  I hung about wondering.  Should I go in and book a seat or what. In the event I took a seat at a table outside and observed.  A queue built up and at 13.00 the doors opened and a maitre'd checked them in.

So now they've got around 25 people seated, all wanting their lunch at the same time.  I'm not sure if there were enough waiting staff to take orders promptly.  Seemed a daft way to run a restaurant.

I went on in the afternoon to a pleasant spot called Ebisu where I had some refreshment (beer is made there) and watched

what was going on.  It was mostly people walking about with or without dogs.  Some joined me in a lift to the 38th floor of a skyscraper to look at the city from above. Some coddled their dogs

Some attended to business

After a while I set off to visit an area of art galleries and the like but got muddled at some point.  Street names would help but that's not a thing in Japan except for major roads.  Anyway I ended up near Ebisu station and went back to base.

 

Back at the shrine on Saturday morning things were a bit wet.  Not everyone's enthusiasm was dented though.  People queued up for merch, that's what グッズ means in the picture below.

Drummers lost none of their energy.

Ceremonial continued

Even from the youngest.

And no-one stopped eating

Saturday also includes a parade through some other districts.  Not only was I unsure about the timing and the geography of this but it was also uninviting weather so I didn't try to get to it.

Sunday was a much brighter day weatherwise and from dawn to dusk was devoted to the return to the shrine of numerous mikoshi (portable shrines carried on palanquins with much ceremony).  I didn't spend all day watching them but I was there from around 9am for a couple of hours and when I passed the same spot at 4.30pm there was still a group arriving at the shrine.

The process involved a front party of half a dozen proceeding slowly with a series of steps that took them from side to side as well as forward, then a group of musicians in a tumbril (the wrong word but describes the vehicle) and finally a great swell of singing and cheering palanquin bearers who almost danced along.

When they got towards the entrance there was much whistling and clapping of hands as they turned the palanquin through 90 degrees.  Then someone ahead of it was raised up, banged sticks together and motioned the crowd first to stop their advance and then to continue. 

I've got a bit of video but it's too big for blogger so when I get home I'll try to edit it down.  In the meantime here are a couple of pics.

 

In the afternoon I went to the East gardens of the Imperial Palace which had been closed (because it was a Friday!) when I tried to go two years ago.  There was a lovely section of proper garden with a pool and so forth in which I was able to sit in the shade and relax for a while.  It was bliss. One picture to set the lotus eating mood.

This is the Kanda Myojin shrine courtyard looking towards the inside of the entrance gate.  The shrine is the nerve centre as it were of the Kanda Matsuri which is said to be one of the three most important shinto festivals and takes place in May every second year.  It runs for a week but the events I came to see happen at the weekend.

My hotel was within spitting distance so on the Friday I was able to watch preparations being made including the all important setting up of food and drink stalls without which no celebration ever takes place in Japan.

 

A while ago I bought a book that describes 40 odd walks around Tokyo and later in the day I followed a couple of them.  One handily started at Kanda Myojin shrine, passed through another couple of nearby shrine/temples and over a bridge on which rail enthusiasts hang out to watch trains whizzing by

then past the orthodox cathedral of St Nicolai (sorry about the tree) and on to the district of

Jimbocho famous for its multitude of (mostly second-hand) bookshops.

Then I moved on to a neighbouring walk that took in the Tokyo Dome (sports and concert venue ably supported in my picture by a train that goes through a buiding), an amusement park and one of Tokyo's many green spaces.