Just a Walk in the Park

The day after our wonderful Thanksgiving celebration, John and I woke up a little groggily to get the day started. I had the beginnings of a cold coming on, but we got up and put everything back in it's place, put some things in the laundry...you know the drill the day after a party. And then I decided that I needed to go ahead and take down my Thanksgiving decorations and put up the Christmas decorations. Please note that I have a ton of Christmas decorations at home, but we only brought a few things to put around for the holiday.

My friend Kate had just lent me some of her Christmas CDs to listen to, so I fired up one of them and guess what comes on as I'm looking at my five sad little Christmas decorations....."I'll Be Home for Christmas"....needless to say, in my pre-cold, post-party state of mind I totally had a little girly breakdown. I realized just how ready I was to go home for the holidays. Poor John, he had no idea how to make it better....so he comes over to help me "decorate" our pint size silver fiber optic Christmas tree, which did get me laughing and then he decides that the weather is just too nice to miss out on, so we need to go for a walk.

We decide that the weather was so nice this would be a great day to take in one of the really big parks in the city...Yoyogi Park, which is a metro ride away. We had been there once before during the week and it's beautiful. That day there were just a handful of other people strolling along the many paths inside. So when we got there we were in for quite a surprise.

At the entrance to the park we were greeted with an offering for Free Hugs...spread a little love around people.

Then we hit the Dancing Elvises which were a riot. I mean they were really getting into it....rock and roll kids....rock and roll. Of course, the music was in Japanese, so we didn't understand it, but you could get the drift. The hair was priceless.

John and I then stroll down one of the paths...we see like 15 people under one tree that's changing colors trying to capture the perfect picture. This isn't one of the locations people suggest to see the foliage, but it was still really pretty there....especially coming from Texas where the leaves are typically green or dead.

There are people EVERYWHERE...it was insane how many people were just all over the place. Practicing their instruments (we heard the diggory do, trumpet, bagpipes), dance routines, theatrical performances, bartending skills....you get the idea. It was madness and pretty awesome. Then we headed over to the dog park within the big park. We walk up and John says, "this is just like home"....while I chime in, "except these dogs are all clothed". We saw sweatshirts with hoods, skirts, a French bulldog with a scarf, and one poor dog had shoes on all four legs, but the best was most definitely the family of pooches dressed in their Santa costumes. John said that they must be the toughest dogs in the park to be dressed like that....too funny. Just a regular walk in the park in Tokyo.

Needless to say my melancholy quickly cleared up and I was thoroughly entertained by it all. Of course, now my cold is full fledged and I'm confined to the house and lots of sleep (yes, I'm accepting all pity), but yesterday was perfect and any time that I'm a little sad...I'm going to take a look at this picture and remember that the world is really a funny place.....

Until next time...Jenn