This third day, the wake up is still a bit difficult. After a quick breakfast, we leave by train to an area north of Shinjuku City, Kitaotsuka (Toshima). After having strolled in small streets quasi-pedestrian (it should be said that many non-major streets seem quasi-pedestrian in what we saw of Tokyo). We buy a lunch box by person (bento box), and we find a small park to sit and eat: Otsukadai Park. It is the break for the school kids of the corner. In the middle of the park is an old steam locomotive, well protected, almost too much. It was made in Goryokaku, Hokkaido. We didn’t find any explanation for its presence, but someone put these indications on GMaps. It worked in the Hokaido area, but we don’t know why it is there 🙂
The last streetcar of Tokyo (Toden Arakawa line) passes nearby. It is more a one-car train than a streetcar, because its route is completely separated from the streets and pedestrians, but it is true that there are crossings across the tracks very regularly. We then went through Ike-Sunpark, a park without too many trees, but with a lot of grass and a lot of parking for strollers: we don’t want the strollers to wander around in an unordered way. It is clearly a place to come with your young children. A little more walking in a residential area where there are also a lot of workshops and garages, we arrive at the Toshimagaoka Cemetery, which allows us to enter the Gokokuji temple from the back.
It is, as often, a complex of temples, the oldest dating from 1681 and built at the request of the fifth shogun. We went around the outer parts of the temple and took a lot of pictures. Then we went quietly (it was hot and humid) to Waseda U for an afternoon of work. Samuel has a codir of more than 3 hours in visio, but managed to escape at 7:15 pm because we have to go to eat. We wish to go in a corner of Terriyaki, but it is Friday and it is not easy to find a place for 5. We end up in an Izakaya for an assortment of Giyozas and other dishes to share served, for the adults, with a beer and a service of sake. The sake is served in its box, but we tell that later!
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