Week 25 - A walk in the park in more ways than one

Edited BY

G P Kennedy

Ian and Minako - Tokyo, Japan

Hello again from Tokyo, we are both well. The cicadas which screech incessantly throughout the summer are finally quietening down. They've been replaced by crickets that also make a constant sound but at least not so ear-piercingly annoying.

It is warm enough for us to still be in T shirts and shorts but without the uncomfortable and exhausting heat and humidity.

The daily average for new coronavirus cases is unchanged from last week at 171 in Tokyo, 23828 in total and there have been 390 deaths – an increase of 8 for the week.

Nationally the daily average has dropped from 648 to 573 with 78061 in total and 1500 deaths.

As announced some rules have been relaxed to allow more people to attend large sporting events, concerts etc. 

There have been crowds of over 10,000 at recent football and baseball games. Restaurants and bars that were requested to close at 10pm can now stay open but apparently there has been little increase in customers as many people are wary of returning to their old habits of sitting in crowded bars until at least there is a vaccine. Also many small events like markets, fairs, traditional festivals etc are still cancelled and there's no sign of them being restarted.

Japan now has a new Prime Minister but we’re not expecting anything to change. Only a few days after Abe announced his resignation,

Yoshihide Suga was elected to take over, or maybe selected is a more appropriate word, the various factions in the LDP make the decisions, the rank-and-file members had no vote. Suga promises continuity which seems to suit most people here. He also promised to do more to empower women before reshuffling his cabinet to include on 2 female MPs, there were 5 previously!

We haven't travelled far this week but we have walked a lot around our neighborhood, burning up the calories and tiring our bodies which helps us sleep well at night. It's a good walk to the next town, Kichijoji, which is big and has a large park, which is also home to the Ghibli Museum. 

It's a lovely park and very popular, so popular, in fact, that we sometimes avoid it, it's just too busy especially during cherry blossom season when you can barely move. But on a quiet weekday morning it's lovely, we strolled around the lake and ate our lunch there. On another day we walked to the opposite end of our town of Nishiogikubo to lunch at one of our favourite cafes, the vegan quiche there is amazing!

But our longest walk was to a big garden center. We are attempting to grow a few Brussel sprouts in pots on our balcony, hopefully in time for Christmas but the seedlings are bit slow and weak so we decided to cheat a bit and buy a small established plant as a backup plus a few extra herbs such as rosemary. It was an interesting walk through an area we're not very familiar with, it was a bit tough carrying all the plants and a large tub home but the balcony is looking very green now, like a little allotment!