The Mystery of the Moving Island

There's a beautiful little park in Mejiro -10 minutes from the station. With a waterfall and ducks. I try to go there at least once a week so it's like my own personal park. Rarely crowded and great for a picnic lunch. Most of the park is water and there's a kind of large island. One day as I went into the park, I was shocked to see that this island had moved. Impossible, I thought, those rocks are huge (but then the Japanese are famous for moving fully grown trees so.......)

I told my wife Chiaki about this mystery and last Saturday we went there together. Unfortunately she couldn' remember how the park had looked the last time she was there (probably because she had been too busy taking photos of the baby ducks) but she refused to believe such a large island could have moved (or even been moved)

In frustration, I bet her 1.000 yen. So she asked the park atttendant if the island had,indeed, moved, prefacing this request with some extremely rapid Japanese which seeemed to include references to 'my insane foreign husband' but I could be wrong.

A lot of quite loud laughter ensued. I, of course, politely joined in.

As we left the park I wondered why the park attendant had felt it necessary to lie. Perhaps the island had moved one night and everyone was too embarrassed to admit it.

I gave my wife the 1.000 yen of course.
But not without a slight feeling that events had conspired against me.

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