the aching nightwalker and the pictured stories : March 24 2025

sunday was a pretty long day, just rereading my entry gave me aches all over my body. but what i did not include in that blog entry was that we had a gym session that night. and it was a leg session.

so this nightwalker was feeling a bit sore this monday. with all that soreness, i was busy thinking which route to take to have a nightwalk but with the least aching involved. so here was were i went.

yanaka ginza (谷中銀座)

this was clearly not planned, stairs! for my case, downward stairs hurt my hamstring the most. and tonight, my hamstring hurt the most. and i was climbing down these steps. perfect! my body was partially doing the penguin stance just to go down. i completely forgot these stairs, i would have chosen a different route should i have known beforehand.

these flat roads came after those stairs, this part i knew. completely deserted as always. nightwalks give you the quiet charms an area has to offer, no buzzling crowds at all. but no open shops either.

yep, closed. everything was closed. i loved the retro look this shop window gave off. it was probably just a take out counter, i couldn't find any doors for customers to get in. or some magic door probably appears in daytime, i really have no clue.

sendagi string of restaurants

the next area was along a main street. cars were passing through incessantly. the restaurants across the street became my photo targets in this part of the nightwalk.

i specifically waited for this passerby to walk in front of this shop. if i had a better camera, i'm sure this man's profile would look sharp. the legs were fine though, but how come the head got blurred? he wasn't bobbing his head while walking, i could not remember that. but he did zipped through without checking what was on the menu. this was a breaded pork skewer shop by the way, and i haven't tried that.

next in line was this bricked french restaurant. don't you love the color of those bricks? i sure did! it was such an interesting texture with simple plants hanging on the walls.

this third shop was quite obvious, those bottles displayed outside already gave out what it was offering. it was an izakaya, a drinking place. i wasn't quite sure what this person outside was doing.

but if i were to give him a story, he was waiting for his companions whom he have not seen for a long time. a monday night will not be a deal breaker for him to have fun and reconnect with his friends. in fact, he got a bit carried away and got to the shop too early than scheduled.

of course, all of that was fiction.

area around the university of tokyo

it actually started with nezu shrine (根津神社), the entrance at least. i was amazed by the lighting and colors of the greenery behind the shrine gate. everything outside was quite bland, that red torii gate looked like the boundary to a colorful vibrant world that this person just came from. tori gates with big tall trees as backdrop really remind me of studio ghibli movies.

the fun stopped there, up ahead was another uphill battle, an uphill road. by this time i was convinced that this route was bad for aching legs.

this was one of the gates of the university of tokyo, it sure looks deserted now but it must be bustling with students in the morning. i loved the brick pavement, superimposed arches. i wonder if those were there from the olden times. i also loved the patterns on those gates, looked like a mandala from afar.

as a side note, that taxi came in and made a u-turn and went out. i too was confused why it did that.

the perimeter gate walls of the university span the whole stretch of this very long road. i could still remember that this trees outside were ginkgo and looked so yellow in autumn. the pavement back then was densely covered with leaf litters. now the tree leaves were all gone, the branches were even groomed, but the yellow ambiance was still there. now i wonder if that was just caused by the lights along this path.

back in ueno park

i eventually reached ueno park as the last major stop of this journey. sakura were in bloom at the entrance. but i couldn't clearly take a picture, they were not lighted at all. there were still people drinking, but i must have missed a program or what. even the lanterns were turned off. it turned out that those sakura trees near the entrance were the only ones in bloom. they were the early birds should i say. the other trees inside the park were still budding. but when they bloom though, one long stretch of road will be covered in flowers and i'm sure that will be a very crowded time. that will happen soon though, sakura blooms only last one week, ephemeral indeed.

as always, AMPING KANUNAY!