Tokyo's Institute for Nature Study

Well we have both been SUPER busy - hence not much blog action! 

Fran is working very hard, he did a total of 205 lessons last month and is going for another 200 lessons this month! 

I am working at school and doing the odd private lesson here and there, practicing my wildlife photography (birds - they move so fast it's so hard... I think I'm getting there though) and visiting my Uncle and Auntie who have just had a gorgeous baby girl called Monique. 

So we are keeping ourselves very busy, having lots of fun and we will stop when April comes!!! 

We have an extremely packed month coming up in April and we want to make sure we have money to be able to do everything we want to! 

Mum, Dad, Nan and Arthur will be coming at the beginning of the month for 10 days then Fran's Brother and girlfriend will be coming out to see us for 10 days at the end of April! It's going to be a great month, we both are looking forward to it SO MUCH.

It's been pretty freezing the past couple of weeks and we've had a few snowy nights but nothing has settled. When I woke up on my day off and the sky was completely clear and the sun was shining, I decided to do something productive with my day! I headed off to the Institute for Nature Study in Meguro (after all it's the 50th best thing to do in Tokyo - hehe). It was really nice and warm in the sun but in the shade it was so, so bitter cold, you can see this in the lake...the half that was in the shade was frozen!

It was so quiet, people were just there to enjoy the atmosphere. It still amazes me now that one minute you can be in the busiest city in the world, surrounded by tall buildings and then you are in a peaceful nature reserve park the next minute. Incredible! There were people sat down enjoying the sun and the surroundings, reading a book or eating lunch! It was great. About 75% of people had proper cameras with them, taking photos of the beautiful scenery and the wildlife.

 Have to say though, being a foreigner in Tokyo with a camera around your neck... not so unique!

I started walking towards this wooded area and I spotted a group of birds (Great Tit - I'm trying to learn the names too) playing in around the trees. I stayed still watching them for a few mins but as I started to move, so I could get a good shot, they must have noticed me and flew away. I managed to catch this little one just before he flew off with the rest of them.

I did wait around to see if they would come back, whilst I was taking a look at some of the flowers, but there were some excitable kids running around, so I figured they wouldn't come back anyway. I went down this path with a steep stairway with tall trees leaning (and shading - bbrrrr) over the path. I could hear so many birds tweeting away... It took me a bit longer to spot them... but not too long :-)

Then I went to visit Dave, Kt, Kt's mum Olive and baby Mona. The flowers below were just decorations in flower pots at Yebisu Garden Place, Ebisu, Tokyo.