1 November 2023
Bird cock golf
Showa memorial park
First, the important update. The post office hostage situation is over. The gunman was 86! Did he still have his gun from ww2? He shot two people in a hospital, neither died, and held 2 women hostage for a few hours in a post office before police arrested him. Maybe he fell asleep?
And of course, we have the Halloween aftermath. Now I know no one will believe this, but on the news this morning, in Japanese so I do not know what was being said, was an old guy, possibly the mayor of Shibuya, holding an ipad (the reporter bowed to him a lot). It appeared to be connected to a smart camera that does facial recognition. It showed how many men, women, and FOREIGNERS, were passing the camera per minute. They then showed footage from last night of police using the same system. So there you go, a foreigner detecting AI camera network prevented world war 3 in Shibuya.
Is there any way the 86 year old gunman from story one can be a foreigner too?
Now for today's non hiking day adventure. While heading to my hike yesterday as the train passed Tachikawa, I spotted a sign advertising a huge park, and so I googled it. It looked good so I went there today.
It is indeed huge. There is a $5 entry fee. It seems to be all lit up at night, especially the ginkgo trees and Japanese garden. There may be an extra fee to go into the lit up areas at night, I saw signs telling you to reserve tickets online. It took me about 2.5 hours to walk around, so it really is a very big park. I should have put on sunscreen, clear blue sky and 23c today.
Before heading to the park I wandered the local area waiting for the rush hour to pass so I could have a less sneeze and cough filled train journey. This is the area around Ochanomizu, at rush hour they now close the streets around the station to cars to make room for pedestrians exiting the station.
Ochanomizu is where the guitar street is. Obviously nothing open at 8am, and most windows had roller shutters preventing me from window shopping.
Tashikawa is a huge place. This is a monorail going overhead. In addition to the Isetan seen here there is also a Takashimaya. The streets all have elevated walkways to keep shoppers away from the store entrances.
Time to go into the garden. I really hate my camera today, it struggles with yellow a lot. It hates any scene with contrast, I will no doubt rant about this a lot.
A wide vista of garden area.
It is important to know the date when entering the garden.
I think these are also ginkgo trees, but it is not the main ginkgo lit up avenue of wonder, which I show below. It is a bit early for peak ginkgo.
This guy has brought his doll to the ginkgo so he take upskirt photos of her holding a broom. He had a $5000 camera, lights, external flash rigs, a whole trolley full of gear.
You can rent a boat and go out on the lake, and drown your doll if she misbehaves.
This is ginkgo avenue, with lights, lasers and smoke machines, to honour Emperor Showa.
And as per today's title, here are the bird cock golf courts. A variation on croquet golf, for this version you hit a shuttlecock with a golf club into a basket. It seems popular. They also had a full frolf course (frisbee golf). So basically every form of golf that is not actual golf.
Because phone cameras do not exist in Japan, they have installed this camera. To use it, you download an app on your phone, pay money, then control it from your phone. While I was waiting to take a photo of it, 2 people used it as a tripod for their phone to take a phone pic.
Time for some shots from inside the Japanese garden, no dogs allowed.
Nice lake.
Shot of the day I guess, but I wish I had a better camera.
Sea of flowers, 1 of 3, yellow. A bit past their best.
The next sea of flowers features a railroad crossing signal, no idea why.
This is a good idea. People buy all kinds of picnic equipment and use it once in their lives. Now you can avoid that mistake and rent all of it. The guy who runs the place seemed annoyed I was taking a photo praising his business.
Sea of flowers 3 of 3. Every colour of flower.
On my return journey I stopped at the Tashikawa station complex for a sit down lunch from Andersons bakery. The apple cake thing is a cake with apples on top and in the middle of it. Apparently it is apple festival week. It was delicious. Also, 'salad drink', presumably made from blending up the bits of salad that fall out of peoples sandwiches. That's all for now.