Category: Everyday Life

It’s a familiar topic as usual: the peony garden on Sunday

We were wondering where to go on a clear sunny Sunday afternoon, when Chris had a nice idea!

Go to Ozasa Central Park and have a picnic lunch (just eat lunch outside), go through Baikôen Walking Park and Ropponmatsu, then go have another look at the peony garden that wasn’t in full bloom yet when we were there on May 5th.

Ozasa Central Park is about five minutes away from our house on foot. It was made a few years ago where there used to be a convent. It’s not a flowers-and-trees park, but it’s a bright open space for neighbourhood kids and families. We ate 30% discounted sushi: sea-eel roll and octopus-mayonnaise roll. (They weren’t past their expiration date. They were on sale in the big clear-out before the shop closed for renovations.) We felt a little chilly in the shade, but we also enjoyed a nice breeze.

We went to Ropponmatsu through Baikôen Walking Park, which will soon be in the hydrangea season. As I thought, Chris wanted to go to his favourite used book store. I thought he wouldn’t find any books he wanted, but he found an English poetry book from before World War II, and it was cheaper than he thought it would be, so he became very happy. He said it’s one of the earliest pocket size books.

More people than usual had come to Ôhori Park. I think ten or twenty years ago most people didn’t have the idea to just enjoy being at a park. For leisure, people thought they had to go somewhere special and that they had to do something special. Have people’s minds changed a little since then? (Am I too hopeful?) There were also many kids and families playing in the park connected to the peony garden. There are many houses made from blue plastic sheets on the other side of the park, though.

There were more visitors at the peony garden too. Of course the age range was higher there. It’d be a little odd if we saw the scene of many kids seriously looking at the peonies, so it wasn’t a surprise.

We probably missed the full bloom time again. There were still many buds, but we also saw many flowers past their prime. We were saying to each other that there seemed to be only standard white and dark pink flowers, or saying it would be better if there was more variety; but when we looked more carefully at the name plates, we found a flower named after Sarah Bernhardt (who was an actress about a hundred years ago, and was also famous as a model for Alphonse Mucha). It seems to bloom later than the others: maybe blooming a few days from now.

Under the wisteria trellis near the entrance of the peony garden, two men were practising percussion. With that sound stuck in our heads, we went for an ice cream in Ôhori Park.

–YS, 15 May 2006

15 May 2006