More and more I'm suspecting that peace and beauty just a few steps away, steps in a direction we have always dismissed.
Because of my disciplined dedication to aimless wandering, its usually me that lucks into these special places. Here is another, the hanging rooftop gardens of Roppongi's Ark Hills.
I was visiting the lively new Ark Hills Farmers Market, and met the lovely lady who makes it all happen, Kanako Iwahara. From what I interpret of her business card, Kanako is the Assistant Happiness Manager for the people who live in the Ivory-beige towers of Roppongi Hills.
She is also a lady with an impressive set of keys, and since its my big hope to meet the garden club members and have a Permaculture presence up there, up we went.
We pass a series of themed garden Rooms - rose garden, native Japanese garden. These dappled, convivial gardens are where salarymen and office ladies descend to enjoy probably the most pleasant hour of their day - lunch, birdsong, scented flowers, and maybe the pleasure of each others company.
Maybe I'm wrong about it being an entire hour though.
Here we are on the roof of Suntory Hall, closed to the public most of the year, to "conserve its function as a bird sanctuary". Its true, the birds are whistling their little hearts out up here.
But Kanako tells me that its the musicians downstairs that were the problem . It seems they complained that the thump of feet on grass was getting into their symphonies, so the public get to see this part of the garden few weeks only, spring and autumn.
Edible gardens usually need to be private to succeed, and tantalizingly are always the most alluring. These are the gardens where people feel confident they can invest all their creative energies, that what they plant will still be there tomorrow.
Unless they eat it.
There is the mix of flowers, food, and insect attracting plants that you would expect in an organic 'ecosystem' garden.
They don't know the word "Permaculture' (yet), but they are doing all the right things up here.
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