Tokyo the Spaceship

I knew before I came here that Japan might as well be an alien planet in lots of ways - indeed, that is one of the very many exciting things about it! But, I wasn't expecting, within a week of living here, to start wondering if Tokyo might actually be a spaceship, on the way to some far-distant galaxy.

But I started to find undeniable evidence everywhere.

In Asakusa outside the Tube Station

Walking down a concourse at Shinagawa

On my way to a tiny nursery in Ohsaki

and on my way back

In Odaiba, my suspicion that I had somehow been captured by a UFO, only got more convincing

Then I looked up a bit further, and I really started to worry

 It didn't matter if I looked during the day - out of the window of a commuter train, maybe

or, as soon as I got off that train

and started walking to one of my daily story venues

or, once the day was done, it was night, and I was on my way home

it was always the same - look around, look up, look down - see another glaring bit of spaceship technology. Eep!

At Haneda Airport, I couldn't help noticing that the Ship might need a few repairs soon 

and that whoever was in charge of engineering really HAD to try and make outside spaces look at least a little bit more realistic

This building, for example, was just taking the mickey

and this one

I get it, I thought: make something look enough like a spaceship, and no-one will believe it actually is a spaceship. But by this time my brain was working overtime. Was there anyone I could ask why, when I looked out of my office window, it now felt as if I was looking straight into outer space?

Tokyo is far, far away from home in lots of ways - anyone can tell you that. But now, I can't help but wonder exactly how far?? I am looking forward to making my best attempt at finding out.

Creepy Babies (Part 2)

The decorated baby statues I saw at Zojoji Temple last month definitely aren't the only ones in Tokyo

They're everywhere! At Kamakura, I saw a whole lot more.

At Zojoji, it was easy to imagine these as what they actually are - statues of Jizobosatusu, the protector of the sprits of stillborn babies. Sombre subject, but (at Zojoji) actually rather cute statues. But there was nothing cute about the Kamakura equivalents. When I looked up at the ranks of them all looking in the same direction - down, at me, they felt much more like a huge, unresponsive, audience. But even scarier!

 I'm very glad it was the middle of the day, and sunny, when I saw them!

Tomokazu Yamada: Color x Color, Shimokita Art Space, Tokyo

This week, I discovered Shimokitazawa, an area only just south of Shibuya and Shinjuku. Unlike those monolithic mega-districts, though, Shimokita, though still full of fashionable young whippersnappers, has a totally different, much more village-y feel.

My jealousy of wrinkle-free people aside, though, I took an instant liking to Shimokitazawa. Because it's where I saw one of the most fun art exhibitions I've seen in a long time.

Tomokazu Yamada is a Tokyo based painter, and this was his first solo show, at Shimokita Art Space. A splash of colour hit me as soon as I walked in, which led me further in to this

and this

and this!

It was a small exhibition, but so well put together I felt I'd seen a bigger one. And the paintings were bold, mid-way between 'illustration' and 'fine art'. From far away they were almost like comics panels - sharp, sometimes funny, clearly the work of an extremely good draughtsman with an eye for the stories that pop out things you see around you.

Closer in, many of the paintings, bold as they were, took on a wistful quality - something light in the brushstrokes, maybe (?), that not only made me desperate to have several of them on my wall, instead of in a book, but made me look at them, and what I was doing there, in a whole different way. Here are some of my favourites

A Tree with a Boy, Acrylic on Wooden Panel 841mm x 594mm

A Boy with a Book, Acrylic on Canvas, 410mm x 410mm

A Frog

Erm, yes - I think that IS 'all of them'. The exhibition finishes today. I'm going again. I want to see it in London.

Cedars, Spas and Strange Statues

You don't have to go that far outside Tokyo to see some really beautiful countryside - not even the ever present Japanese telegraph poles can spoil it (actually they just make it feel more Japanese). Last bank holiday weekend my housemates took me to Hanno - home of my first onsen (Japanese hot spring), and high hills covered with Japanese Cedar trees banked up above the river valley. Gorgeous -

In the evening, Hanno became home to the best barbecue, and the most surreal conversation (with a German lady, in Japanese) I've ever had

But, these weren't the most interesting things about Hanno. Nooo. Hanno is also, I think, the place where strange technicolour statues come to die. We had no idea what we were looking at, to begin with

Massive icons at the top of a hill in the Japanese countryside??? This is definitely not in my guidebook! It was all a bit confusing for me and my housemate Hiromi

Then it only got MORE confusing, when a giant globe peeped out from behind the trees. We tried to work out whether these things had ever appeared in any story we'd ever heard about, or read. They hadn't. Was it a film set or something?

Nope. And it wasn't just a giant globe, but a globe with yet another a big icon on top of it. What kind of film set would want THIS??

Still drawing a total blank, we quickly gave up trying to work out any logical reason for the existence of these things, and started drinking and playing with dodgy fireworks

Best thing for it.

The Big Slide

 

I hadn't seen a slide this big for years, let alone slid down one. This is how it looked from the top, to me: god knows how enormous it looked to actual kids! It was really fast, too.

Coffee in Koenji

I'm not the biggest coffee fan in the world, which is probably a good thing in Tokyo. From what I've seen in the few weeks I've been here, the coffee you normally get is super sweet, actually milk in disguise, Starbucks mud, or so weak it's almost transparent.

But in the weekend, I was gloriously proved wrong right on my doorstep when I met a friend at Coffee Amp in Koenji, just one tube station away. Now I think I AM a coffee fan.

Time Out took a picture of a cup of Coffee Amp's bog standard cup:

The surprising thing for me - in Japan, I really shouldn't be surprised about it any more, but I am - was that the coffee really does actually look this beautiful when it arrives at your table in real life. And Coffee Amp is one of the only places I've seen here where you can buy coffee beans by weight, too. Hurrah!

Just as I was leaving, the owners very apologetically handed out a beautifully designed note explaining why their prices had to go up by a few yen (coffee beans just got a lot more expensive). I don't think I'd bother if I owned a coffee shop this good. But perhaps that's one of the reasons why I DON'T own one...

Coffee Amp. Perhaps it's the place that will finally get me a new addiction to add to sugar, salt, cigarettes, books, wine, and collecting pictures of strange monuments. The more the merrier, perhaps!

My First Kamishibai

An Englishwoman like me performing traditional Japanese picture storytelling - Kamishibai - in Japanese, but with an English story, is only a tiny bit less odd than triffids in tokyo. But that didn't stop me last week: I performed my very first Kamishibai to a group of 40 or 50 intent (read 'polite' rather than 'rapt') 4 year olds.

In Japanese, Jack and the Beanstalk is 'Jack to Mame no Ki'

It was one of those serendipitous accidents - I didn't mean to land myself infront of a big class with my hastily drawn pictures and super simplified storyline. But by some sort of linguistic mistake (I'm now practically famous for those), after I mentioned my work in progress in passing - 'Jack to Mame no Ki: Kamishibai' - appeared on a schedule. When something appears on a schedule here in Tokyo, it means that it is happening, unless you can give a good reason why not. I don't have the Japanese.

So, tingling with nerves and deading yet more abject humiliation, I went for it

A bit sheepishly at first

Then it just got too fun and I forgot to be sheepish

The highlight was definitely the bit near the beginning where Jack brings home a bean from the market instead of money and the shopping. Here is the offending bean

And here is Jack's mum when she sees it

What started off as a terrifying prospect ended up being immense fun. For me, at least. Who knows how much of my Japanese narration actually made sense? I've decided not to think about it - best just look forward to the next one.

I have a sudden urge to buy colouring pens.