Mother Nature reads my weblog, apparently. She cleared the skies and brought us the warmest day of the year so far. (If summer were always like today—28 degrees and only slightly humid—I’d be a happy girl.)

This afternoon, we lunched in Hibiya Park under a wisteria arbor near one of the ponds and watched salarymen and pensioners interacting with the turtles. I brought muffaletta (check for the recipe on Thursday) and plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit, and a few cookies that a crow snatched from our picnic as we stood to look out over the pond. Sneaky crow.

This evening, we met Jim & Yuka at Canal Cafe in Iidabashi. It’s a lovely spot on the outer moat of the Imperial Palace with a view across to the Chuo and Sobu line trains. There’s a rather expensive restaurant and a more reasonably priced dock-side bar. We quaffed some wine and then walked up Kagurazaka to Sofra, a Turkish restaurant. The food is good, but overpriced and the service is awful. Thankfully, we missed the belly dancing. Sadly, there aren’t a lot of options for Turkish food in Tokyo, so we’ll probably go back.