In the Nash: Sankeien Gardens...

Went to Sankeien Gardens today with Geoff. Also happened to meet his friend Hisham and his sister Iza, both from Malaysia. Hisham worked with Geoff in StreetWise back in Melbourne, and Iza has just moved to Japan to study Japanese for four years.

We initially strolled around Yokohama station looking for some food, and guess what?...settled in on McDonalds :) Maccas seems a little bit healthier here, I donno why, just the taste. Anyway Iza was getting a fridge delivered to her place (which is an hour away from Yokohama) so she went back, while the three of us continued on a bus to Sankeien.

Sankeien is unlike any place I've yet seen in Japan. Maybe because its not near a train station; the area is very residential, lots of houses, not really any apartments, and where we were, not many businesses, just small convenience stores. A nice change from Tsunashima, where I just see apartments, no houses, and lots of small businesses and the closer you get to the station, more businesses and eating places.

Here's the funny part. When we were waiting at the bus stop to catch the bus, a woman (mebbe late 40s) overheard us speaking in english and helped us out by telling us which bus to get on. Coincidentally, we were all going to Sankeien, so she rode the bus with us. Hisham had a good chat with her the whole way to Sankeien (about 30 mins), while Geoff and I sat nearby. When we got off, the woman (Honda Kazue) offered to show us her house, and asked us to come for coffee after we had finished at Sankeien gardens! That's hospitable for you. She gave us her number and told us to call her when we were finished at the gardens.

We took off to the Sankeien gardens which Geoff had seen on the internet and thought it was a good place to go. He was right. There were some very picturesque views; hope my photos do it some justice. The cherry blossoms were out, but this park was not solely for viewing cherry blossoms like Ueno park, there were more traditional Japanese buildings and nice walking paths. We spent a good two hours there, and halfway through I realised I had lost my jacket. It was a good jacket too. Luckily, I had taken all my valuables out of it before taking it off, so I didn't lose my phone or wallet or camera. The Sankeien gardens I think were more beautiful than Ueno park, but maybe that's because there were far less people there. The giant lake in the middle made for some really nice reflections, and it was a very nice, sunny day but I was still cold without my jacket :(

After the park, I tried calling Kazue (first name) only to realise I hadn't actually saved the number so I tried calling all these other numbers which I thought it was. Unfortunately that didn't work, so we just rocked up at her house, heheheh... didn't know whether that was rude or not ;). She was extremely nice and had prepared coffee, made some sticky rice balls with bean paste inside wrapped with an oak leaf (for each of us), and also some onigiri (those triangular rice cakes with seaweed on one side to hold) with ikan bilis inside!!! The small white fish, so it really reminded me of mum's cooking. Yum. She showed us round her massive place, her mum had passed away but lived in a connecting house; she showed us her mum's house, the living room, bedroom, her pottery, calligraphy and drawings, I gather that her mum was very talented. Anyway, Kazue herself spoke such good english because she had worked in America for 12 years as a PanAmerica Airline stewardess. I think she said PanAmerica went bankrupt sometime in the 1990s, but she was one of the first 7 Japanese stewardesses asked to work in PanAm, because at that time they had started getting more Japanese customers. Anyway, needless to say we were very grateful for the unexpected hospitality. We spent around an hour at her place chatting about Japan, some about the World Cup, our jobs as Nova teachers, etc.

The day was pretty much over from there, although I must point out that I was pretty cold. I need to go buy another jacket now. And I NEED A TABLE!!!! Almost bought one for 4725Y, or about $60AUD at Muji (just like an IKEA, except a bit more ex. www.muji.net)

Signing off, it was a good day, enjoy the photos!