My Own Backyard

A little bit ago when the weather was cooler, and it was a particularly breezy spring evening, Ryan and I went walking around
our neighborhood to see new sights and get a bite or two to eat. We live in an apartment building with a very small ( and very
industrial and not quite useable) balcony- so having our own private outdoor space is only the stuff of dreams right now. However,
we've noticed something that looks like a back garden to our building on the opposite side of the entrance, and decided to try
and find a way in. The warm weather and rain in May made a veritable jungle out of what seems like it once was a small traditional
Japanese style zen garden of sorts. It was beautiful to see nature taking over all the stone foundations and walls of old structures,
and all the flowers blooming made it feel somewhat magical. I'm definitely going to want to visit again soon, although I do wonder
if the residents on the ground floor, whose windows and balconies overlook the garden would be annoyed to find it not so vacant as usual.















We took some new side streets we hadn't turned down before and there were several beautiful details to see. This eye-catching yellow and blue staircase was just too great, and how cute is that tiny playground dinosaur! I really love this hoody dress from Niko And. It's so so comfortable but somehow still feels elegant even though it's a glorified snuggy. It's definitely the thickest, sturdiest, and most well made hoody type item that I own, and I'm kind of sad I didn't get to wear it more before summer. I didn't wear it much in the winter because it was too cold and I didn't have a coat long enough to wear with it, and now the weather has jumped straight to 'too hot for sleeves.' Also, I had a really difficult time photographing my No-Face pin I got from the ghibli museum, so I hope you can all see it okay. It's tiny and reflects glare really badly, so it was tricky to capture, but it's the cutest and I love it so much. I didn't take our camera to the museum because photos aren't allowed inside anyway, but I might need to share some phone photos from the outside soon, because, SO CUTE.












We took side streets all the way to the main part of town, stopping for fun vending machine drinks along the way, and decided on a tiny old wood sushi joint behind the main road for dinner. I had the best, biggest, softest raw scallops of my life, and we were the only people inside except for a little old man around the corner of the counter. The chef was excited about Japanese, but could also understand English quite well and told us he was a sushi chef in New York for a while. No prices were marked, so we happily ate away and almost fell off our seats a little at the bill total. oops. There went our eating out budget for May. ha.



Love,
From Japan,
<3Kathryn