Back to Yanaka

One of my first few posts in this blog was made almost 3 years ago, on July 25, 2004, when Theo was still at 18 weeks of gestation inside Mommy D. Mommy D and I were still living in Yanaka (near Nippori Station) at that time.

Both photos (the one above and in the link) were taken at the same place, in the famous Yanaka Cemetery, which, surprisingly, has a children's playground in its midst. Not like in other countries, Japanese cemeteries hardly contain dead bodies. They are often used to enshrine the ashes of loved ones. Thus, these places aren't as scary as those portrayed in Hollywood movies.


To reach this destination, we took the highway bus (instead of the Tsukuba Express), and then went down at Ueno Station to take the Yamanote Line for Nippori. The photo above was taken near Ueno Station, where Theo enjoyed the early morning stroll.


This is another photo taken at the playground. Theo enjoyed the slide so much, we could no longer count the number of times he went up and slid down.


From the Yanaka Cemetery, we proceeded to the nearby Nezu Shrine where there was an ongoing festival (Tsutsuji Matsuri). Tsutsuji is a kind of flower that blossoms in spring. Unfortunately, because of the unusually warm winter this year, the flowers didn't fully bloom or weren't as beautiful as they should be. There were fewer people who went there than in the previous years, probably because of this.


This photo and the one below were also taken yesterday at the Nezu Shrine. For Theo to face the camera, Mommy D had to coax him by saying that there are ants on my head. Theo is so curious about ants that he will stop anything that he's doing if you tell him that there are ants around. We couldn't fool him too long though but it was long enough to take this shot with the shrine entrance behind him


Theo loves to play with peddles, much to his mother's chagrin because it often always means dirty hands and fingernails. Kids are kids, no matter what!