I love Tokyo. And, I love the area of Tokyo where we live. Even though we live in a 30-floor apartment tower surrounded by many other — and bigger — apartment towers, our “neighborhood” is very residential. Children walk along the sidewalks on their way to school, there are moms with babies and toddlers on bikes, in strollers and baby packs. Workers walk to their offices. People are running and jogging, and walking their dogs. It is very quiet and peaceful.
This part of Tokyo is all built up on artificial islands — land that has been reclaimed from Tokyo Bay — and many of these islands are separated by canals. I love to walk and run along these canals. Most of the islands have walkways built alongside the canals with plenty of places to sit and relax. It is a popular place for people to take their lunch or have a break. It is IN the city, yet it doesn’t feel like it is IN the city.
I have started taking photos of the water in the canals. Something about the inky darkness of the water breaks the reflections of the buildings and bridges into interesting patterns of shapes and colors. I never really noticed this about water before, and just stumbled upon it because it showed up in the photos I took of the ducks and wildlife along the canal. So… here you go… Just a few of my favorites.
Let’s add some wildlife… ducks in these photos, but we see heron, egrets, cormorants, seagulls, and pigeons. There are turtles, and lots of fish — some of the fish are more than two feet long. We also see jellyfish in the brackish water of the canals.
Four Years in Japan 