Sunday, September 04, 2005
The grass and the sky and me in between
A few days ago, I was browsing through the local magazines section in one of those mega bookstores when I happened upon this unusual one with a very intriguing name - The Picnic Bible. It was printed in thick matte paper - as opposed to a glossy - and looked more like a significantly thinner coffee table book rather than a magazine. Of course it was in Japanese and yes, I'm odd that way - reading magazines I can't really read - but as they say, a picture says a thousand words. And on the cover was a couple having a cozy picnic in the midst of a forest clearing, a charming picnic basket between them.
I rifled through the pages, getting curiouser and curiouser, and saw that it was article upon article of different groups of people having picnics with different themes, laid out with the most attractive photos I have ever seen. The couple on the cover had a Theatre theme although I'm unsure what made it so, maybe they were actors? Yeah, pretty lame. Then there was this mother and her little daughter who had a For Her to Remember picnic on a beach which was just the sweetest thing (and will be copied by me pronto). Yet another couple had green tea outside a temple in what they call a Spiritual Japanese High Tea picnic. Other peculiars were French-style, American 50's-style, doggie-style, and so on and so forth. Some are lost in my translation of course. Anyway, the whole concept is ingenious. An Original. The best magazine I've browsed through since - FOREVER.
But probably I'm just biased because I love picnicking. Whether it's in crowded Luneta with zesto and chippy. Or (very) sunny Singapore Botanical equipped with a thermos of piping hot coffee(!) and TJ hotdogs. Or here.
I feel slight guilt in saying that picnics here are especially wonderful. The weather really does matter and well, the beauty of spring and early summer in Japan beckons - seduces - even the most reclusive person to pack the obento, the frisbee, the bottle of wine, and the blue picnic mat and head over to whichever koen one fancies - whether it's at the grassy knolls of the woodstock-ish Yoyogi Park or under the the big trees of a quieter random park in Yurakucho. Ah! There is nothing more conducive to a catnap than an onigiri-filled tummy, a raucous game of kickball and the slight wind gently ruffling your hair.
Truthfully, we haven't been on a picnic since the summer temperature zoomed up to the skies. We've been missing it like one misses a lover on a business trip. But O says the winds are cooler these days and the sun less punishing. So there's one thing we're looking forward to.
Autumn.
photo originally from here