Bird enthusiasts in the making?

Stumbling unintentionally into new experiences make for the best kind of memories. Today we headed to the Meiji Jingu Shrine, situated within a beautiful forest-style park. We did sneak off the track to start with to go into the forest where we saw a mass of huge bamboo plants growing in the centre. It was incredible seeing the plant on such a large scale. After a stroll around the park and visiting the shrine itself we paid to enter a garden which had beautiful plants and winding paths that lead us to a lakeside. After spending some time watching the many koi carp we sat on a nearby bench where we saw a man holding out his hand and small birds swooping in to land on it. Nick held his in the same position and a tiny bird landed on his hand and had a good look around for food before flying off. After a while another man must of seen us trying to get the birds to land on our hands because he came over with peanuts and showed us how to hold them but to be cautious not to feed it to them. I was so shocked when one landed on me at first that I just let go of my nut as soon as it landed! This happened a couple of times but we soon got the hang of it and they came and sat on our hands for ages pecking at the nuts. It was such an amazing experience and one we didn't expect would happen. It actually became the highlight of our day. After we left the park we visited a popular shopping street and then went to a roof top Starbucks where I queued for about 30 minutes for a coffee but the view from the skyscraper was worth the wait! We then headed to the busiest and biggest pedestrian crossing in Japan. It was crazy just standing up on a wall and watching everyone try and cross from so many directions. Crossing it yourself however is a lot less busy than it looks. Later on we tried to find a river where they are meant to light up cherry blossom trees at night but unfortunately we found the river and there were no trees lit up. We plan to do more research on where to see this and maybe head somewhere else tomorrow for a second attempt. I'm incredibly hopeful that birds in the UK will land on us just as they did here when we return home!Baca lagi