Thursday, March 10, 2016

皇居ピクニック – Picnic @ the Imperial palace



東京マラソン開催の日、皇居でピクニック。
風は冷たかったけれど、日差しはすっかり春。
お堀の白鳥も、何だかアクティブに泳いでいました。
美しく手入れされたふかふかの芝生の広場、
早咲きの桜や、白紅梅を眺めながらのピクニックは格別でした。
大手門近くに以前勤務していたビルも見えて、
季節感も感じないまま忙しく働いていた時期を思い出しました。
近くにある平将門の首塚の話題になったのですが、
そう言えば、そのビルで勤務していた時、
平将門さんにお尻を向けないように
全てのデスクをレイアウトしていると、
総務のひとから真面目な顔で説明を受けたことがありました。
アメリカの銀行なのにー、とびっくり。
そうそう、会社帰りに皇居ランした時に、
「かっぱに違いない小さな手」がお堀に沈むのを目撃したのも
大手門近くでした。
ふふっ、、、ラン後の飲み会で、
ランニング部メンバーに報告してみましたけど

笑いの提供のみに終わりました。

I joined a picnic in the park at the Imperial palace on the day of Tokyo Marathon, February 28th.
It’s a lovely day with the warm sunshine so we didn’t care about chillness of the winds.
A swan was happily swimming in the moat.
The open space was so beautiful covered with thick & well-trimmed lawn, having good view of the early-blooming cherry trees and white & pink plum blossoms.

I could see the building where I had worked very hard for several years, without noticing the change of seasons.
When I worked at that office of an American bank, Manager of Administration dept. told me a funny story. - all the desk were located not to face away from (to be precisely, to avoid “put our back side exposed” which means “disrespectful” in our manner) “ tomb for the head” of TAIRA no Masakado in Otemachi.
I was surprised to see they seriously believed his curses. - TAIRA no Masakado has been regarded as an guardian that protects Tokyo, but at the same time, it’s a typical Tatari-gami(the god in anger) that brings us many curses. Actually, several scary & evil things happened when there was a plan to move his " tomb for the head" a long time ago.

Well, I have one more story around the Imperial Palace. When I was running after work, I witnessed a small hand was just sinking under water of the moat near the Ote-mon Gate. Of course, I reported to the running club members as 
“It must be KAPPA” at the get-together right after running but I just made them burst into laughter… KAPPA is one of the traditional creatures (UMA like Yeti) in Japan.




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