New Sights in Old Asakusa: The Sky Tree and Secret Garden

Sky Tree and Five-Story Pagoda

The newest addition to the Tokyo skyline is the Sky Tree, rising 634 meters from the ground about one kilometer east of Asakusa and two kilometers northeast of Ryogoku, famous for sumo wrestlers and the Edo-Tokyo Museum.  The Sky Tree, scheduled to open sometime in 2012, will play an instrumental role in Tokyo's total transformation to digital communications.  And, yes, I'm wearing the scarf I dyed at the indigo shop in Saitama Prefecture a few years ago.

A few days ago I mentioned the (other) middle-aged ladies we met on our pilgrimage who told us about a special garden behind the Sensoji Five-Story Pagoda.  To access the garden, we entered the building on the right, followed arrows through a fascinating exhibit of ancient painted doors (from the original temple, I presume), and exited into a totally enclosed garden on the other side of the building.    

The garden was enormous, surprisingly so since it is surrounded by hundreds of small businesses and temple buildings in bustling Asakusa.  Either Weather or Shinagawa-san gets credit for the lovely picture at left, showing the Five-Story Pagoda reflected in the garden pond.  You might remember that my camera became a useless appendage a few stops back on our pilgrimage.

Tomoko-san, Bossy, and Weather-san in the Secret Garden

Water Striders (photo credit: Weather)

While I'm not a big fan of living things in general and dogs and insects in particular, the water striders skimming across the pond fascinated me. They were stationary for long periods of time then darted quickly in one direction or another, propelling themselves forward with a charmingly graceful and perfectly Olympian double breaststroke using both their front and back legs simultaneously. The end result of each darting motion was a quick little wrestling match between two water striders and then they were off again in search of new opponents.

That's my take on the natural world for 2011. I hope you enjoyed it.