Walking Around Seki

With all our exploring of the surrounding area it's been easy to forget the city we're living in. We've spent a lot of time walking along the river and visited one Temple but there is much more to Seki. It's famous for eel restaurants and cutlery (sounds unromantic but cutlery is a diversification from Samuri sword making of which Seki was the home of the best). There is a whole street of various coffee houses some upmarket and expensive and some old-fashioned and dark. Today we walked around a beautiful Shinto Shrine. We've passed it many times and it has a fantastic tiered wooden roof just as you'd imagine a classical Japanese structure. We didn't go inside as it is so peaceful that it almost forbids distraction. It clearly requests that no photos be taken though so that is why you lack a picture. We found a path that follows the boundary of it though and it was the perfect image of peaceful contemplation. We sat in a pretty public garden opposite with wisteria hanging from a trelis and let the stresses of boisterous Saturday morning students fall away. It's easy to get bogged down in normal life but on a warm, sunny day it was magical to let the scenery impress itself on your mind and remember that after all this is an adventure and we are living in Japan.