A while back, I went to some random park near the school with the first year students. I had actually forgotten about going altogether, but I do remember that it was quite a beautiful place. Well, today I decided to go to the famous Rikugien park, expecting some brand new experience, and quite by chance it was the same place I’d been to back in April. So that was lucky.

I think I made it clear in that update that this place was a breathtakingly beautiful place. This bridge connects the mainland to the island in the middle of the lake, but it’s barred off. I imagine that is to stop the crows attacking you for trespassing.

These are the other two islands, although I think it’s clear why there is no bridge to them. I do like the idea of some crazy old man selling up his home and moving out to one of them though. It would have added a certain “Oh no is the crazy island man going to bite me” element to the park, which I feel all parks need.

This is how the crazy island man would have traveled between the islands. However, this boat in the crow territory, which of course means that he would have had to forge some deal with the crows, in order for them to allow passage for him to retrieve his boat. I would imagine the politics would have quickly broken down and war would have broken out. This is the tragic story of Crazy Island Man.

Ok, I’ll stop with the island man now.

So yes, it was a very attractive place. However, the thing that topped that was the wildlife. There was just so much, and not entirely made up of the insect variety. Firstly the Cicadas. A Cicada is a big insect that comes out everywhere in Japan at this time of year and makes this odd screeching sound. The Japanese love it because it reminds them it’s summertime, just incase they forget in the unbearable heat. As for me, every time I hear it I want to die a little, but it does wake you up in a much more effective way than coffee ever could. That is, if you sleep in the park. Like Crazy Island Ma…sorry…

Also flying around, in the middle of the day, were bats! They were flying really close to me and reasonably slowly, however none of them were slow enough to allow me to get a decent photo. After a while my wits caught up with me, and I screamed “Oh No! Vampire Bats!” and fled. Yes, I may have overreacted slightly but on the other hand I am not a vampire now so maybe it was for the best.

On my way around the lake I was also lucky enough to get a couple of shots of some butterflies. Here’s the best one, not because it really adds much to this account but because butterflies are really hard to take pictures of. Fiendishly hard.

However, all the butterflies, islands and crows in the entire world could even come close to the sheer awesome-ness of the next animal…

Turtles! Loads of them! They were all milling about waiting for people to chuck bread at them, although one boy was throwing crisps at them. I’m not sure if turtles eat crisps but it’s the thought that counts. Also swimming around were lots of huge fish. “Now Mike, if you managed to get cute turtles and a big fish in one photograph, you would be the best photographer ever!”

Hah!

I’ll be taking my award now. I really can’t get over how awesome the nature in this park was. I was going to post a picture of the crows to finish this update with, however nobody likes crows as they are mean and they steal food from innocent bystanders, so I shall take this opportunity to post one final turtle picture!

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