Tokyo today Awagami tomorrow

At 6 am when we landed at Tokyo Haneda airport it was already nearly 30 degrees and humid, on arrival at my Shinjuku Hotel I knew it was only going to get warmer so I opted to walk to the  Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in search of some cooling garden breezes (?).

The gardens are about 145 acres and only a block from the bustle of the multi storied Shinjuku department stores and station. Original part of an Edo Lords residence, it has been an agricultural experimental station then after  world war 2 in 1949 it was opened to the public as a national garden. The garden has three styles, Japanese traditional, English landscape and French Formal.

 Traditional Japanese garden at Shinjuku Gyoen National  Garden

The architecture outside of the gardens is mainly concrete multi story buildings many  very nondescript in design with the occasional beautiful stand out .

After an iced coffee with lots of ice it was time for some retail therapy and a visit to Sekaido Shinjuku - 5 floors of art supplies OMG, packed with people all buying.  I'm including this image of about 1/4 of the letraset on display after a recent discussion with my graphic designer friends who were reminiscing on the beauties of Letraset