Horses & Kids @Baji Park: June 28, 2015

Tokyo enters into the rainy season. We try to find the opportunities (between the rain) to go out.

Today, I visited Baji Park （Equestrian Park）.

Children were given an opportunity to be close to the horses and to touch them.

The horses were will trained and gentle. Kids as well as their parents enjoyed touching the horses.

Tax free shops@ Shinjuku: June 21, 2015

The number of Asian tourists is increasing remarkably in recent years. More than 13 million foreigners visited Japan in 2014. The number will surely be more than it in 2015. Many of them enjoy shopping in Tokyo.

I visited tax-free shops in Shinjuku.

Laox, a Chinese capital-backed firm, opened a new shop in Shinjuku early this month. The store sells goods including electronic goods, cosmetics, luxury watches, jewelries, and fashionable clothes. All commercial goods are duty free, that means the store target foreign tourists.

There were not so many shoppers probably because the store was just opened. The sales staff seemed to bhave been trained well. The Chinese staff spoke good Japanese.

Bicqlo is a shop operated by Bic Camera and Uniqlo. It opened in 2012. Each company has its sales spaces in the building. They target both Japanese shoppers and foreign tourists. Tax-free services are offered for foreigners (top photo).

The store was crowded. Japanese, Chinese and other Asian languages were heard in the shop.

The “massive purchase” by Chinese and other Asian tourists makes headlines of newspapers these days. Stores are making efforts to take in it.

Various scenes in Kawasaki City: May 31, 2015

Kawasaki City, which locates between Tokyo and Yokohama, has many features. Its population is about 1.5 million. It developed as an industrial city after the Meiji Revolution, became infamous as a city of air pollution in the 1960s and 1970s and introduced pollution control policies in the past 40 years.

It has industrial zones in the eastern coastal areas and residential districts in the north. It has many high-class residential areas, but some areas are left behind modernization. There still remain the areas where many flophouses stand.

There was a big fire in mid-May at flophouses and several people were killed.　The fire site is about 15-minute walk from JR Kawasaki station. I visited the place to mourn for the victims and to see the situation of the area. (top photo)

The buildings were burn out. The smell of ash dust still remained. Modern apartment houses stood around the site.

There are many flophouses in the area quite near from the fire site. Many old people stay there. It is reported that many of them live on the public livelihood assistance. (the 2nd photo)

I also visited Ukishima Park, which lies at the mouth of Tamagawa River. The park is in the industrial zones. 

There are factories of petrochemical, electronics and other fields there.

The Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport) is at the opposite side of Tamagawa River. The airplanes took off and landed in every two or three minutes.