Look at all the Pretty Flowers!

Today I set my alarm and woke up by 9. I skipped out on the Nikko trip with Don and the rest of the exchange students and instead went to Komagome in order to meet up with Junko. I will probably not make it back to Nikko by myself which is a real shame, but I got to spend the entire day with Junko instead. It is probably the last time I will see her before leaving Japan.

So we met up at Komagome (she was 30 minutes late) and found a nice place to eat lunch. It was ramen at a pretty famous place. After that we went over to Rikugi park to check out the flowers. Sadly, there were not very many flowers. Upon entering we saw a bunch of bamboo stalks with paper tied to them. It is for the Tanabata festival held on July 7th of every year. Before the festival people write their wishes on a piece of paper and hang it from a bamboo stalk. I wished for a safe trip home and a safe return to Japan in the future.

We wandered the rest of the park together which featured a fairly large pond and tons of trees. Japanese people really know how to make nature look good. Afterwards went out for ice cream. It is still blazing here in Tokyo at a scorching 88 degrees! We went to Baskin Robbins (which is called "31" in Japanese for some reason) and shared a triple scoop chocolate cheesecake, blueberry, and ramune mix. It was delicious.

The next stop on our tour was another nearby park which featured an extensive rose garden. There were roses of all shapes, colors, and sizes (most of them in bloom!) all around the exterior of this beautiful victorian house. I think Junko took at least 3 pictures of every rose in the garden... Anyway, we wandered around her as well ending up back at the house for a tour of the inside. The upper floor had a combination of Japanese style and Western style rooms which was very interesting.

We then wandered around the rest of Komagome before getting tired and thirsty. The next stop was Sunshine city in Ikebukuro. We got some bubble tea and talked for another hour. It was nice being able to sit down in the air conditioning.

We parted ways and said our final goodbyes on the Yamanote train. Back at home I refused to do homework and instead spent the rest of the night playing DS with Nathan. It's good to have a gaming partner.