More photos on Flickr and Instagram

We changed hotels today. Why? Because the two nights here were (free) on a promotion. The hotel didn’t look too far after we got off the subway. But the directions lied 😉.We eventually found our way to the hotel after a small amount of backtracking and then came to an intersection where there were no crosswalks (only barriers), but our hotel is directly across the street. So close, yet…Down a street level elevator to the underground to see if any of the tunnels eventually led to our hotel. One eventually led to our hotel, but it took a bit. Predictably, the subways and streets downtown were quiet. 

Our hotel starts on the 28th floor and rooms go up from there. Very elegant but simple Japanese decor. Great view from our room.

We’ve seen this element of furnishings before, both in our last hotel here (as well as this one) and in Paris. High tech potty. It comes with lots of features, one of which is nice. Heated seats.

Onto something more scenic, there’s a large park nearby called Hama-rikyu. We strolled down a sidewalk lined by a small forest of bamboo trees.

Once in the park, from the map we discover that it’s really quite a large park so it’s unlikely well cover it all today. Some of the cherry trees and camellia trees have started to bloom. Further on, there’s a brilliant field full of rape flowering. Here, it’s ornamental, but we’ve seen many fields of rape raised for the rapeseed oil in France.

There are two large fields of flowering rape and the air is fragranced by the mass of flowers.This section of the park is busy with people walking thru the bisected field of flowers, taking photos and selfies (something I just don’t understand).

We continued our walk through this part of the park to where the 300 year old black pine is located. Contrary to the picture, this isn’t a forest but a single, sprawling tree. It has a lot of supports to keep the limbs from breaking.

Time to head back to the hotel for afternoon tea.