Hama Detached Palace Garden

From the Tsukiji Fish Markey, it was only a short walk to the Hama Detatched Palace Garden. In fact, the garden is just on the other side of the Tsukiji River. I wasn’t sure that a walk through a garden was what I needed today. However, once we got there, and started to walk through the park, I started to feel a little more relaxed.

So what was there that relaxed me? After all, I lived in New York City, where city dwellers can escape from the hassles of a big city in Central Park, perhaps the greatest big city park in the world. However, there was something a bit different here. The most obvious thing is that this is a tourist park, in that there is an admission to enter the park (300 yen, or 3 US dollars). One can see right away where that admission goes. I suppose that it is expensive to maintain the grounds of the park. For one thing, each park that we have been to has huge spider webs everywhere except on walking paths, which means that people are paid to walk through the park and get rid of spider webs from the walking paths.

Even at the dawn of fall, there were beautiful flowers in bloom. Perhaps I am getting to much into the frame of mind of some of the classic Japanese poets that write so much about nature, flowers, and the moon. “If you see but flowers, then you see nothing at all,” or something like that.

Besides the flowers, there were also a few ponds. At certain points, there would be a bridge over the pond, either to the other side, or to a small island in the middle of the pond. One of these small islands had a classic Japanese tea house in the middle. Being tourists, we decided to go into the tea house, and have green tea with a Japanese cake. The green tea was thick with seaweed, and the cake was about the size of a silver dollar. It was tasty, all the same, and I suppose that it was that much more of a taste of Japan, even if it was kitsch.

After leaving the park, we could see that the whole park is more or less surrounded by water. On one side of the park is the Tsukiji River. On the other sides, there is a moat that surrounds the park.

All in all, the walk around the park was very pleasant, and relaxed me a great deal. I was beginning to enjoy being in Japan again. After yesterday, I was just about done with Japan. But these relaxing things that we do, when there isn’t so much of an agenda, make me feel much better, and more comfortable about being here.