Hidden Spaces

Who knew? The second floor of this super non-descript building in Edogawabashi houses...

...a space like this.

A small tea room/restaurant that opened up about three months ago, in what used to be a mahjong room.

 

It's run by three people, and the relatively small room has been decorated lovingly.

 

 The lunch set comes with tea, soup...

 ...main dish and side dishes, with lapsang souchong...

 

...and a desert with pu-erh tea. 

 

Unfortunately, it is set to close at the end of the month for reasons unknown.

Emergency Drill, Tokyo Bay Style

It was cause for concern last Sunday when I saw this helicopter hovering near Tokyo Bay.

 

For a moment, my mom thought it could be the ever-controversial Osprey.

Look closely, and you can see a fatigues-like pattern.

It turned out to be Japan's self-defense forces, on loan for emergency drill demonstrations. See the man sliding down the rope?

An errant balloon flies by.

Also, a huge flock of birds swooped very low and very fast over the water, giving the impression for a moment that locusts were coming.

Another fun thing: a demonstration of how fires are put out if they occur close to the bay. (For example, a factory fire.) I remember my dad viewing the fire-fighting ships from afar when the factory across the bay caught on fire after the March 11 earthquake.

The water spurts out of the red spouts.

Other unrelated ships on the Bay.