Day 102 - Hot Cross Ponds

I always wanna start these posts with a long, drawn-out sigh. Today it's mostly because of the heat. I think I may be actually melting.

Mama made more plans today. And thankfully didn't pass me off to someone else again. Started class at 9, and after school was over around 3, managed to find my way to Fukugawa, where there is an Edo Museum. Well, much better than just a museum. It turned out to be an actual small version of an actual town. Like, they built whole houses and a mini river, and a watch tower, and cut away parts of some of the houses, and you could go inside the others. It was fascinating, if rather small.

There's some definite differences in culture here. I waited to meet Mama, but as soon as she appeared, she got a phone call and stood, with me, for a good 15 minutes chatting with a friend on the phone. Yeah, she's got her own life, but so do I, and I felt rather put out at that. Also, inside the museum, there were these lovely volunteers who were willing to give some info about the different types of buildings. But they spoke Japanese really quickly, so I got lost almost right away. But Mama didn't seem to notice and stood talking with them for a long time. I felt like a 5-year-old again, "go do something else while mama talks with these nice people", kinda thing. So yeah, I wandered off. And she talked with them about old Edo, and where this was actually a copy of, and a bunch of things I simply couldn't follow because the volunteer was completely ignoring me.

But all in all, the Edo museum was lovely. I think I might talk Tama-chan into going with me. It was only like, 300¥, so pretty damn cheap. And there was a cat-thing, which I think may be the true lure to getting her there.

After that, Mama and I went down the street to a "rock garden". I was just expecting a bunch of rocks. Which there was, but it was surrounded by a lovely normal garden. The garden had rocks from all over Japan, which was probably the least interesting part of it. It had a huge pond in the center full of Koi and turtles and tiny fish, so that was very nice. VERY Japanese. There was also an Iris garden at the back, mostly bloomed out. And at the very back, a pretty famous stone. Well, I know about it, which is saying something. It's the stone on which Basho, the most famous poet in Edo period Japan, carved one of his famous haiku poems.

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

A quiet old pond,
A frog hops right into it,
The sound of water.

Unfortunately, it wasn't anywhere near a pond, and there were no signs of frogs nearby. The irony. Mama didn't even notice it until I hung back to take a few pics. And said what I knew about it. Then she got real excited. It's actually the original stone, and while it used to be in a different place, they moved it to this particular garden out of fear of natural disasters.

I got to travel home after that. Mama diligently made her daily trip to the hospital to see Papa. I got a few hours on my own, where I baked up in my room. Today has been tooooooo hot, and it seems the days only get hotter from here. I'm gonna die. Especially if Mama continues to insist on feeding my hot food on days like these. I got delicious curry udon. But it was hot. I don't even want to digest, my whole body is working on keeping me cool. Stomach cramps and too hot. Japan. :/

P.S. If you couldn't tell, I'm officially out of interesting titles for my blog. I just… don't know anymore. Bleargh.