Koishikawa Koraku-en, p121 of the Lonely Planet

Today is one of the first times I actually planned to go somewhere. I have a really bad habit of not planning anything, and basically doing nothing. So today was different, and quite fun. I went to this place called Koishikawa Koraku-en (not too far out from central Tokyo), where there was a giant "stroll" park, with some Chinese influence. Quite a large park, and some spots were very beautiful, maybe they'd be more beautiful if I took better photos too. On the flipside, some of the park felt like a jungle; there were giant insects and mosquitos flying around everywhere and I felt sticky all over. One little annoyance was that I couldn't really take photos with the sky showing, because it usually had buildings in the view. The park is basically dumped right in the middle of the city. But its the other way round actually; city development has reduced 3/4 of the park to what it is now. Another weird thing: there is a Korakuen Amusement Park right near the park, so you can hear occassional screams from the people riding rollercoasters...you kinda lose that zen-ish atmosphere, I guess also when you see the huge Tokyo Dome in the distance. Anyway, here are some choice fotos:





















I have taken a liking to insects...











Anyways, after the park, I walked around Koraku-en for a while and ran into Tokyo Dome and Tokyo Dome City, which is a large shopping area around the stadium which is the Yomiuri Giants' home stadium. The first part I reached seemed to be some kind of gambling/placing your bets place, because there were all these old men smoking and standing outside a building, and queues inside. It's all built around the stadium so I assumed that's what they must be doing. I mean, what else do old smoky guys in Japan do?

I had a quick peek in an arcade to find highschool kids playing all manner of lottery (win coins and stuff, refund for money) games. Some people were being watched, so I assumed they were pretty good at it! Crazy. I walked around some more, ended up in the open shopping complex which the Korakuen Amusement park is built around; kind of a cool idea, but I noticed the rollercoaster ride only goes for like 5 minutes. I'll let the photos do the talking. SOMEONE LET ME KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING BACK HOME!!!