Koishikawa Botanical garden / Koishikawa Bunkyo-ward

Koishikawa Botanical Garden is the one of the research institute of the Univesity of Tokyo.
Lee and Shige often go walking around there. The circumference of this garden is quiet and there are few cars on the road. It’s very good for walking, however, unfortunately, dogs cannot walk into the garden.

This garden is the oldest botanical garden in Japan. It was established in 1684, the Samurai-period, as the medicinal herb garden of Bakufu (the government of Shogun: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogun ).
In 1877, when the University of Tokyo was established, this garden became a research institute of the Univesity.

There is a beautiful old building at the west end of the garden. You can see it from the outside of the wall. This is the "Tokyo Medical School" main building.The Tokyo Medical School was the origin of the University of Tokyo, faculty of medicine. This building was built at Hongoh-area (the campus of the University of Tokyo) in 1875, and relocated to this garden in 1969. This building is open even now as a small museum,,, dogs cannot walk in anyway!

Togenuki-Zizou (Kougan-Ji Temple) / Sugamo Toshima-ward

Sunday morning, Shige and Lee went for a walk to Sugamo, the northwestern area of Tokyo. It takes about 20 minutes on foot from Shige's condo. Sugamo is very famous for "Togenuki-Zizou"(Kougan-Ji temple(photo Upper)) and this area has been called "Granny's Harajuku" because lots of grannies are coming shoping and walking around there every weekend.

"Zizou" is one of the most popular Buddha, who has been believed to protect people's life. Togenuki-Zizou" here is said that it can heal/cure the human diseases. Actually, the statue of “Togenuki-Zizou” is kept inside the Temple and we can’t see that. Instead of that, there is a Buddha statue outside the temple building(photo Center). That Buddha statue is called “Arai Kan-non” (Washing Kan-non) and that is believed to cure the human diseases, too (Kan-non is also one of the Buddha believed to save peopele). People who suffered from knee dysfunction wash the statue's knee. People who suffered from back-pain wash the statue's lumbar, like that. In earlier days, the statue was washed with brush, but recently it is washed with towel because of abrasion.

There were some grannies there although it was early, before 7AM. They were washing the statue with towel(photo Lower) . We weren't brave enough to join the grannies, but I think I should have joined and washed the head of the statue.

Hi, I'm Lee

I'm a 2ys old miniature dachshund. I live in Tokyo.
My daddy(Shige) and I go walking every morning. Especially, we are looking forward to walking on weekend because I can walk and run over 1hr, and Shige can visit temples, ruins or other sightseeing spot in his neighborhood.
We are thinking if we can introduce you various morning scenes of Tokyo.
Shige will write this blog on behalf of me....I'm afraid he is not a native English speaker/writer, is just an English learner, so he would make some grammatical error. But I believe he'll do his best.