End of year
Late February and March is a very slow time for me. The Japanese school year is winding down, students look forward to graduation and spring vacation, and my various contracts are expiring. But I have many chores to occupy me.
1) (February 4), I needed an internist appointment to get prescription refills, a regular thing.
2) (February 18), I needed an ophthalmology appointment, another regular thing.
3) (February 21), I had to apply for my annual income tax refund.
4) (February 25), because the Observation Deck of the Tokyo City Hall was closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, I decided instead to visit to 60th floor Observation Deck of the Sunshine 60 building in Ikebukuro, Toshima Ward.
5) (March 1), I had to arrange for a coronavirus booster shot.
6) (March 9), I needed a dentist appointment for cleaning, another regular thing.
7) (February 26), since I had the time, I decided to take a day trip south to visit Yamashita Park in Yokohama, and the Yokohama Chinatown (February 26). That’s something I’ve thought about off-and-on for a few years, because I hadn’t done it in such a long time.
8) (March 4), I decided to visit Odaiba by Tokyo Harbor to ride the Ferris wheel, just for fun (March 4). 115 meters high.
9) (March 5), the very next day, I returned to Odaiba for the specific purpose of walking across the Rainbow Bridge / Tokyo Bay Bridge.
10) (March 17), an unplanned orthopedics appointment.
11) (March 25-27), I planned and paid for a two-day private trip on the Hayabusa bullet train to the city of Hakodate, Hokkaido, in northern Japan. I was very excited about it because I’ve never visited anywhere in the north, and I decided that since I can’t travel internationally at the moment, this was as good an excursion as any. But, we experienced a strong earthquake around 11:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 16th centered in the ocean off the coast of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures that caused damage leading to the suspension of all bullet train service to the north until late-April. Bugger!! That quake - itself an aftershock of the megaquake of March 2011 - was followed by hundreds of aftershocks. There were utility outages in the Tohoku region, road closures, a derailed bullet train plus damage to the bullet train tracks and infrastructure. It was a big quake. As an alternative, substitute trip, I booked an excursion to Kyoto for the weekend of April 1-3. I was less excited about it because I’ve been to Kyoto before. I took it as a good opportunity, though, to complete my unfinished Kyoto trip of 2019 by visiting the ancient capital of Nara.