I had nothing scheduled today and no money to do anything interesting so I went over to Oifuto-Chuo-Kaihin Park which is a few minutes drive from my place. Unlike Yoyogi or Ueno Parks, this one is mainly an athletic park. It has several stadiums, baseball diamonds and a dozen tennis courts. It’s a huge sucker. You’ve probably seen it from the monorail on the way to Haneda Airport. Because it’s a fairly obscure park, the place is generally not very crowded. I like coming here once in a while for a run or just to relax. When I was living in Umegaoka it was great to have Hanegi Park nearby, but since moving down to Ota-ku this is the nearest big park (1) Who’s that handsome guy? Why it’s me enjoying a book and a ball game at Ota Stadium (2) The stadium is fairly large and has a real scoreboard. Flashing lights and everything. It seats about 2,500 spectators. There were only about 5 or 6 people besides me watching the game which btw sucked. One team bunted every time they were at bat and the other team kept hitting foul balls.

(1) After parking the car I noticed something on the roof (2) It was a giant praying mantis! Must’ve saw that I was driving the New Roadster and wanted to take a closer look. I tried to shoo it away but it kept hanging on. Something I learned early on with my previous car is to never park under a tree with the top open. All kinds of crap end up falling into the car, leaves, tree branches, acorns, and big fat ugly bugs like this one. Imagine if I had the top down today? I would have freaked out if that giant mantis fell onto my head. Bugs are scary (3) Of course I need to include at least one picture of my car! Can you spot my NC?

(1) Map of the park (2) There’s also a “Dog Run” which is basically a fenced off space where dogs are allowed to run free and unleashed. Many dog owners bring their pets here and let them mate with other people’s pets (3) These big bull dogs were getting their picture taken for the Dog Run membership card. It’s a club apparently. What is the appeal of bulldogs? I’ll never know (4) These guys were ready for mating alright. I didn’t take the picture of them in the act because this is a family website.

(1) The only place to eat anything in this park was at a cafeteria located on the 2nd floor of one of the buildings (2) I had a hamburg curry. It tasted like it looks. There’s a cherry in that salad (3) On the menu, one of the items was turkey pastrami. I’ve never seen this anywhere in Japan ever so it was kind of strange to see it here. I was not brave enough to try it.

More pictures of the park

(1) Here’s Ota Stadium from the outside. Doesn’t look very big, does it? (2) There were a few old guys watching the game. Will I end up like this guy one day? (3) There was also a football game going on. No cheerleaders though.

(1) After, I drove over to Jonanshima-Kaihin Park which is on one of the islands closest to Haneda Airport. On a nice day, this park is a great place to watch the planes landing and taking off. Bosozoku biker gangs used to hang out here at night so they close it at 9pm now. Although a bit cliche, it’s a nice place for a date. I think this is one of the best spots in Tokyo, but it’s hard for most people to get to because there are no train stations nearby. There’s even a camp ground where you can have a BBQ. The place is packed in summer and on the weekends but you can generally just park on the streets nearby when the parking lots are full (2) Today the weather was crap but I did get a shot of this jet. I’ll have to come back again on a nice day for better photos.

In the parking lot, two guys in a truck had the engine running and were fast asleep. This is a common sight in Japan but I can’t help thinking 1. Gas is expensive. What a waste of money 2.Those unnecessary exhaust fumes are eating up the ozone layer. This may seem hypocritical coming from someone who drives a sport car and revs the engine to redline every chance I get but at least I don’t needlessly leave the car idling. There should be a law against this.