芝浦ハウスの「タヌキと友達を作ろう」のイベントで、参加者が７つのお面をオフィスに持ってかえりました。@watanukinow さんが、オフィスの方たちの写真を送ってくれました。ありがとうございます！
Tanuki sent one of the Shibaura House Making Friends with tanuki lunchtime participants back with seven masks and some snacks wrapped in a scrotal cloth resembling fabric. Thanks, @watanukinow for sharing this great photo of your co-workers!
Spring in Tokyo reminds you of the power that flowers have to capture human imagination. Cherry blossom viewing, which has its own name in Japanese, hanami (花見), draws people to socialize outdoors, drinking and eating on blue tarps with family, friends, co-workers and neighbors.
The power of cherry blossoms (or sakura, 桜) even inspires acts of seeming recklessness. In the photo above, an older salary man is perched precariously above the Imperial Palace moat in his quest to take a close-up photo with his cellphone (or ketai).
As an anthropologist and foreigner in Japan, it is also striking to me how specific flower devotion in Japan is. On a hanami stroll, I noticed this beautiful yellow flowering bush called yamabuki, literally “mountain spray.” I have never seen it on either coast in the United States; an internet search gives its English name “kerria.” Despite the crowds in the Tokyo park, I felt that I alone was giving this flower some attention.
At the end of this month, Good Day Books in Ebisu, will be hosting an author’s reading with Enbutsu Sumiko. Her Flower Lover’s Guide to Tokyo offers 40 walks in Tokyo focusing on seasonal flowers in various parks and gardens.
Tokyo Green Space 