Last Ditch Tokyo

This weekend has been mental. On Saturday, essentially finished up work. Saturday evening, Paul decideds to have an all nighter bash at a karaoke box with his mates. Sunda, crash, but in the afternoon did some last ditch shopping.

Monday, firstly, went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka. We went along with a Japanese couple that Paul knows. They were adorable

The robot from Laputa. It's huge!

This is the second time I’ve been to this museum (first time was back in December 2005), and it’s always a pleasure to go here. If you’ve seen a handful of Ghibli films, it’s definitely worth the outing. You need to buy the tickets in advance because it’s a pretty small area and only so many people can fit in (for those of you who are interested, you can pre-purchase the tickets from a Lawsons). And this Monday happened to be a public holiday, so there were quite a lot of people about.

After the Ghibli museum, we went for a walk around the Inokashira park not so far from the museum.

According to Miss M of the couple, there’s an urban legend regarding boat riding in Inokashira park. Legend has it that those couples who ride the rowing boats in Inokashira park lake are ound to break up.

The weather was nice, the wind was a tad chilly, but all in all it was a glorious day. The park had bits of cherry blossoms blooming, and there were people about doing holiday stuff: playing on the swings, picknicking, playing badminton, playind catchball, playing soccer.

And for some reason, there was a demonstration going on around this idyllic place.

It was, seriously, a very organised and low key demonstration, but there were a reasonable number of people walking. The flags are flags for the various unions, I think. The unions are from specific industries, but also from specific regions within Tokyo. Some of their demands; “Reduce spending on the self defence force!”, “Stop increasing the cost of the national health insurance!”, “Stop the defunct pension system!” I guess the demands of people around the world are more or less the same.

And to wrap up the day, had a nice work farewell party at a park near my place. It was a little cold and dark, but fun. A lot of strangeness ensued with running laps around the park and an impromptu soccer match

So it was all pretty mad, but now its really crunch time. My room is looking pretty empty and tidy, boxes are more or less packed. Paper work with the ward is done. Landlady came and had a squidge. Yes, more or less done.

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