I’m still not the picture of health and woke up coughing a lot. I knew I shouldn’t overdo things like I did earlier this week at least until I feel better. But it was my weekly cleaning day in my hotel room so I knew I had to be out from 10 to 2 at a minimum. I puttered around my room until it was close to 10, calling home and basically trying to figure out where to go today without coughing up a lung. I decided go somewhere odd, Kokubunji.

Kokubunji is listed in my my guide book as “A Journey to History and Nature,” but surprisingly is also where my mom worked in an orphanage and where my old co-worker Suzuki-san lives. My mom also said my Aunt Yoshiko’s brother has a house in Kokubunji. But, as my mom says, there’s a surprising amount of greenery in Tokyo and it would be a nice quiet place to spend a restful day. That, and the cough drops I finally bought (rather than the throat candy I had) were pretty much what I needed.

I got to Kokubunji without much problem but there wasn’t any sign of a “phone” or a “house right next to the phone” on the south side of the station, where my Aunt Yoshiko’s brother’s house was supposed to be.

I did see a sign right near the station that made me think this would be a good day.

The Tonogayato Gardens, a Metropolitan Garden, was right near the station and a nice pleasant place that made me do something I said I’d never do: take pictures of a bunch of trees like my dad always did.

The gardens had a nice green lawn that they were trimming with Weed Eaters which seemed like a lot of trouble, but I realized I’ve never seen a lawn mower in Japan. The Weed Eaters were incredibly quiet as well.

I’m going to post some more embarrassing pictures of nature, just because. There were bamboo gardens and streams and lots of trees.

 There were supposed to be historic sights to see so I started looking for Otaka’s Path and Masugata Pond Springs and also the ruins of the old Kokubunji temple. I didn’t find a map until a long ways into the trip so I had to follow all the neighborhood maps and I even stumbled upon some markers for the path that would have been nice to find earlier on.

I did find a bunch of signs that took a bit to read that didn’t make the trip any easier. I was getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes at the gardens and even saw a giant wood spider so the signs warning me about nature didn’t make me feel any better. Like this first one that says there are big snakes and to leave them alone.

Or the one warning me about suzumebachi, or “sparrow bee” which is the Japanese name for the Asian Giant Hornet which may or may not cause a lot of deaths per year in Japan (the intarwebs aren’t quite clear on this).

Or the one about the regular honey bees you shouldn’t annoy. You can’t see them flying around in this picture, but they were there.

In any case, I wandered around Kokubunji finding a nature preserve (with more nature), the ruins of the old temple (which often was just open fields with old faded signs) but also some old gates.

It would have been nice to find the map for all of this before this point, but this is the part of the story where I actually found a tourist map of the town.

Then, after this gate, I found the ruins or empty fields or whatever you want to call them. I wandered back and forth around the same area and must have passed the Masugata springs at least four times.

The water comes out of the rock wall at the bottom of a hill.

With the map in hand I wanted to see the final rock bridge but it was a disappointment.  

It wasn’t a complete loss because I stopped into the coffee shop next to the bridge and had an ice coffee and scones which were tiny but tasty. If you can’t tell, the red thing in the middle is a mini Hershey’s krackel and that should tell you how tiny the things on the table are.

I’d say Dream Pocket is worth the stop if you’re by that silly bridge.

I had a confusing trip back home that took some backtracking because there are a bunch of different express lines which include the “Rapid”, “Chūō Special Rapid”, “Ōme Special Rapid”, “Commuter Rapid”, and “Commuter Special Rapid” which are all written in Japanese of some sort on the outside of the train. Somehow I don’t think I’m going to be here long enough to figure it out.

The rest of the day I spent in the room taking it easy. I was watching Anthony Bordain on Discovery last night and I realized one of the things I wanted to do was sit around watching Japanese TV. I finally figure out how to get some local channels and that’s what I did this evening. I even got a ¥300 bento from the Tesco Express so I could spend more time watching the weird mysteries that were on. Yet another weird success.