Perfect park in the city

Last Monday my husband and I attended an OMF meeting at our headquarters on the other side of Tokyo. On the way home we stopped for coffee at our nearest major commercial center (Tokyo has a number of these, this one is called Ikebukuro, and it houses the third-busiest train station in the world). It was a public holiday and the crowds were out in great force, which is a scary thing when you're talking about one of the biggest metropolises in the world. There was a lines to get a seat at the coffee shop, so we took ours with us and found a park.

Ikebukoro has a small park that you could easily miss. I've only been to there twice, even though I go through the train station a few times a month.

In the tradition of inner-city parks, it's surrounded by high buildings. According to my measurements (using onthegomap.com), it's about the size of a rugby league field. So it's really quite small (2 acres), compared to the likes of New York's central park (843 acres) and Sydney's Hyde Park (39.5 acres). 

But still, it's a bit of rare grass. Rare, as in almost no one has grass in Japan, not even schools. But the grass this country does have is often perfectly manicured. And so precious that this lot had a barrier around it, so no one could ride across it, or drive their prams on it either! Here's the "parking". There were "monitors". Not sure what you'd have to do to get their negative attention, though I suspect damaging the grass would be high on the list.

The view from where we sat, sipping our drinks (no we didn't sit on the grass). I was interested to see that a lot of the ladies were sitting cross-legged. We'd been indoctrinated that that is a no-no in Japan, that you are supposed to either sit on your feet, or sit with them to the side. Both of which, if you're not used to, are excruciating after a while. Perhaps that's another rule that's changing? Or if you're on grass, it's a different rule to if you are inside?

In Japan our work rarely coincides, so last Monday it was nice to be out and about together on our own on a work day without feeling guilty (the boys were home relaxing).