riverwalk

Today, the kids and I took a short walk from our apartment to the river, over on imadegawa and then through the imperial gardens down to marutamachi and then home up the river.  For the first time in more than a week it isn't above 90°, but it is still really humid. It rained off and on during our walk. Also, I finally got a picture of the really beautiful blue and white bird I see on my runs:

Note how gracefully the bird flies just over the surface of the water...

Oh, wait, that's not it. But you can see how high the river is from the rain; normally the rocks are not completely submerged.  Last weekend, the river covered the whole triangle behind N, and was up at least over the bottom two steps you can see center right.

Here is the bird:

These are everywhere up and down the river. Very cool.

We took a similar picture of the kids last August. In a 250 word essay, please compare and contrast.