Find The Comet ☄️

“見えますか？” — translates to “can you see it?”

I heard this question a lot of times yesterday.

It all started one Sunday afternoon when I decided to go out and have a walk to a park. The park isn’t really near, it’s 4km from where I was. I decided to go out because (1) I needed to breathe the autumn air, (2) get active at least for the weekend, and (3) to get used to my walking shoes which I haven’t taken out of the box yet. The 3rd was the main reason.

I didn’t realize 5pm was almost sunset. I wasn’t expecting it because the other day, it was so hot like summer that you wouldn’t feel it’s already the autumn season. It was only yesterday that I started to feel the autumn vibe.

The route I took was one I haven’t been to before. It wasn’t the main road but the road’s wide enough. It was a quiet neighborhood somewhere in Nakano-ku.

Speaking of Nakano, they’re running a contest this month called Lovers Walk. It’s a Walk Rally where you need to find the hiragana characters in the bulletin board. Find 5 of them and make a word out of it. Submit it and if you’re one of the first 200 people, you’ll win a roast beef. I’m not sure of who the sponsor is but I think this event is made possible by the city officials of Nakano-ku.

Because of this, I was also motivated to go out of the house. 😅 I don’t think I’ll win though, it’s almost the end of the month. I’m sure people have already submitted their answers by now.

I passed by a Buddhist temple, which I didn’t know exist in this area. Next time, I’ll try to visit and enter.

Saw some unattended construction work. It’s usually closed off and not shown to the public but this one wasn’t. From the looks of it, it seems like they’re going to build an apartment.

I didn’t realize I was already in Suginami-ku and not in Nakano-ku anymore. If I didn’t see this sign, I’ll never realize. This area seems like a semi shopping district since I saw some shops.

Now I’m about to exit the neighborhood road and enter the main road.

I felt like I’ve passed this main road before when we were having a roadtrip with friends. I’m just not so sure though. It’s my first time walking here though, and I’m not sure where I was in the map. 😅 I didn’t mind, I’ll just follow the route to the park.

It’s getting so dark. Like dark dark. If I didn’t check the time, I would thought I was walking at 10pm but actually it was still 5:30pm. Passed by a few temples, parks and many more houses. The only sound I could hear was the breeze and the festival music from far away. It’s getting creepy…

After passing this small river, that’s when I felt a bit scared for myself. It seemed like I was the only one walking around the area, although I’ve seen one or two others. Maybe it’s just my imagination but I remained to be fearless - at least in my mind.

I’ve finally reached the park — err, not this one. This is just a portion of the park, something like a tip of the iceberg.

Snapped a photo for memories and when I was just about to go, an old man asked me what I was taking a photo of. I blurted “景色” out of the blue - which means the scenery. The old man was enthusiastically talking to me about 彗星 (read as suise) and at that time, I was just reacting any random reaction because I actually didn’t know what suise meant. 😂 Fake it til you make it — my motto at that moment.

He ran towards a dark grassy area of the park, as if telling me to catch up and then he started telling me that you could not see it with your eyes but you can see it with the smartphone’s photo.

He didn’t look suspicious but of course he’s a stranger so I took some precautions. This was also the time I opened my dictionary app and searched for the meaning of suise which was a comet. Upon learning about it, oh wow, for real?!

We were standing there for a good 10 minutes or more, him still trying to take photos of the night sky and me looking around. It was so cold, but I couldn’t just leave as he was so enthusiastic about the comet.

I learned a little bit of himself and he even encouraged me to do my best with my job. He said his son is also in the same field as I am. He shared another event in the area next month, an event about an aircraft from Hokkaido that’s going to be around this area. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about so I’ll just research about it later.

I noticed another guy was on his camera taking photos of the sky as his lens were pointing up. I told the old man and he hurriedly walked to the other man asking if he could see the comet.

見えますか？ — “can you see it?”

He asked the man if he saw the comet and the man guided us where to find it.

To be honest, I tried taking photos of the sky but I couldn’t figure out which was the comet. They look like stars for me! 😅

It was just us 3 over there looking at the sky. After a few minutes, many people who were passing by asked us the same question of whether we can see it. There were 2 middle schoolers who were on their bicycle that stopped and asked us what’s the fuss and when we told them it’s a comet, they put their bicycle on one side and joined us at finding the comet.

It was hard to determine where so the old man asked the man with the professional camera to show us his camera. I was peeking from a distance but the old man was concerned about me and pushed me in front of the camera screen. I was glad he did because now I could clearly see the “tail” of the comet! It was amazing! ちょっとだけ感動しました。😅

I went back to my original position, bracing the cold night breeze with my phone pointing to the sky, still trying to find that comet. A young man asked me the same question, and I was a bit surprised. He could have asked others in the group but he asked me specifically - me who could barely talked in Japanese. 😂

I think that was also my cue to let go of that place, so that young man was the last person to ask me that question on that night. 😂 The old man from earlier already went home, so I thought it’s already fine for me to go. I thank the guy with the nice camera lens for showing me the comet, and off I went to the main portion of the park.

This area didn’t feel like Tokyo. I thought I was in a semi countryside but I guess that’s the vibe of Suginami-ku. As I was looking at some signs, it seems like there’s a museum around here somewhere.

I was super cold because even when I wore long sleeves, it was the airism type. The jacket I wore was waterproof and I don’t know if it was windproof but well, I don’t think it was as I was cold.

I reached the entrance of the park and the one I’ve been trying to find. Yes, it’s this river. Or maybe there’s another one..? I’ve seen a photo of this river in google maps, and it looked pretty during spring. Now that I know how to go here, I can come back during the cherry blossoms season and see for myself how incredible this river would be.

The park didn’t feel “welcoming”. Sure there were some benches here and there but it was so scary since it’s so deserted.

There were only few cars on this road too! But I’ve seen some people jogging along the river. At least there were some people.

It was funny how I’ve been constantly looking at the sky now that I knew about the comet. The old man said earlier you could only see them for about 30 minutes, so I wasn’t sure if I could still see it at that time.

Since it was super duper cold now, and my feet were starting to feel painful - ah yes, the foot pain’s back hayst - I looked up how to go home by commute. Luckily there’s a bus stop few minutes away from the park that would take me close to home.

As I walked towards it, I passed by a big shrine. Wow! This is something nice! I’ll definitely go back here and explore this shrine. Just look at how big the torii gate is!

Since there was festival around here, one bus route was canceled. Luckily not the bus route I took home. On the way back, I saw the festival site and how at 7pm, the people were cleaning up and packing their stalls. I’ve wondered how it’s still early for them to finish the festival.

Anyways, that’s all! How about you? Have you seen the comet or at least heard about it?

Thanks for reading!
See you around! じゃあ、またね！

^{All photos are taken using my phone unless stated otherwise.}

This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io

Walking