Intercity

The city of contrast. Have a look at the slender, Star Wars like Intercity tower on the south exit of Shinagawa JR station. Next, go across the north exit, climb past the Prince hotel on the left side of the hill, then get lost in the plush provincial small alleys, aiming at Gotanda station.

Astronomy

Off-the-beaten track destination? The National Astronomical Observatory, south of Musashi Sakai JR station in the West side of Tokyo, is tucked in lush green and offers three haunting observatory buildings of the 1930's.

Fumiko Hayashi's garden house

How fresh and powerful is the face of author Fumiko Hayashi I picked on a poster at the entrance of her beautiful garden house built in 1941, now a public space. How fresh is this face captured some 70 years ago. The garden is pure beauty. I skipped the room where artifacts of the author are gathered and stayed instead in the garden for a good 30 minutes, totally alone. Once you cross the the large avenues at Ochiai station, there starts the typical provincial face of Tokyo, with Shinjuku towers at close distance. Pictures of the promenade are to be found here.

No more temples

The cherry blossoms are snowing down in Tokyo. The new green will be a welcome sight after such a profuse, overwhelming blanket of whitish pink. I swore the other day "no more temples!". That is, until I saw that one, north of Nakano station, one among so many getting unnoticed in the guide books. Kyoto may be the city of thousand temples. Tokyo has even more.