Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Back Again
After a very long absence I've decided to start writing on here again , and of course posting a few photo's
The Sun also Rises or Eastern Intrigue Part 2
Part 1
The best stories start at the end apparently, although my "problem" with this one is I don't know where the end actually is ………………………
Maybe standing in Heathrow airport listening to the brainless chavs shouting down their mobile phones whilst standing in front of a no mobile phones sign ? , or how about walking out in to my garden the first day back and taking in the cool air and birdsong maybe ? or opening a letter on the self same morning from a prospective employer asking me to attend a test session after I'd been awake for 25 hrs straight - I declined the offer - needless to say .
Rewind two weeks and you have me stood in front of the Virgin check in desk with the company "demanding with menaces" an extra £40 carbon footprint tax , which was payable on a retrospective basis – ha at least Dick Turpin - highwayman extraordinaire - wore a mask , but anyway needless to say the ensuing flight was a pleasure otherwise , all champagne and proper food on china plates with me unable to sleep instead watching an interesting social comment film amongst others called This is England – highly recommended if you like this kind of stuff , but a bit bleak in parts- typical Channel 4 really .
Narita airport still has the wonderfully quaint neatly trimmed 1950's name sign cut in the grass , I notice as the plane slews to a halt after 12 hours , oh yes while I remember I got stopped by Japanese customs and searched too , they got me after all these years - your thinking , hmmm yes - well if you can call politely taking a two second peek inside your case a search .
The hotel was the same as last year the fantastic Keio Plaza in Shinjuku and unlike last year there were none of our German friends causing mayhem in the check in queue , and when I checked in I was unexpectedly presented with two weeks worth of free breakfast vouchers which saved me quiet a lot of money and in doing so paid for Tony's carbon footprint tax., but who pays for his worldwide farewell tour I ask ?
( oooohhh a little bit of political comment here - bet you thought I was slipping).
Part 2
A few days later I was sat on the wall watching the massive semi tame crows get fed in Ueno park when I noticed a Japanese guy carrying two sticks walking my way , he must have been about 45-50yrs and from his attire I guess he was one of the street
people . He said good morning to me in English and then proceeded to have a long conversation about a wide range of topics in very good English , so he was not your average down and out - bi lingual and obviously intelligent , I never did ask him about him self , as it seemed too personal a question at the time .
Anyway a well dressed business type walked past and made what I regarded was a sharp remark to my friend , I asked the business guy what he had just said and he replied he'd said to my friend to "stop bothering the tourists" , now I can understand to an extent his sentiments , but this street guy wasn't asking for money or bothering me in any way , so I just said thanks for his concern and got back to the interesting conversation .
Wandering around Shinjuku I noticed a place called Krispy Kreams ,which I thought was simply a doughnut shop , but obviously not as the queuing time at most times of the day was a staggering two hours and there were two security guards to marshall the queue , I was sat on a wall waiting for a nearby shop called Tokyu Hands to open and an American guy walked past and asked me and asked -
"What's the queue for ??? .
" Doughnuts" - I replied .
"What - just doughnuts ? " - says he.
"Yup just doughnuts……….., tell you what I wouldn't queue for two hours if they were giving money away…………….. " - say's I .
He just walked off laughing……………………………..
Tokyu Hands had now opened and I was one of the first through the door , I was met by the sight of 15 or so identically dressed shop assistants at the head of every isle doing 90 degree bows as I and other customers walked past
( rather like the jewellery department incident of last year ) , this like the last time totally and utterly freaked me out , I won't be first in a shop again - believe me .
They are obviously still oblivious to western swear words in Japan as one of the tracks playing on the shop stereo system was gangsta rap with absolutely loads of swearing in it , and there was quiet a few kids generally inTokyo with t – shirts emblazoned with swear words too , not that either offends me by the way.
I suppose the parody would be Japanese kids wandering round western cites with swear words in Japanese script , which would be unreadable to the average westerner, thus no offence taken.
Part 3
I had arranged a trip to Osaka on the Bullet Train ( Shinkansen ) to meet a couple of Japanese friends of mine Atsu and Takayuki .
There are three types of Bullet trains two Dan Dare ( esque ) ones and one that looks like Concorde , but all three look like a wide and spacious aircraft cabin inside and they all run along a purpose built track at a "mere" 300mph , which you can't really feel as like in an aircraft you have no real sensation of speed , I took a photo out of the window and it was just a blur incidentally .
Three hours later your in Osaka , I get cleaned up and wander off to visit the absolutely stunning Osaka Castle and then back to the hotel lobby to meet Atsu and Takayuki , and I am immediately hit with a vision of Atsu shouting my name and flinging herself at me full tilt , nearly knocked me flying , Takayuki following along then gives me the universal – women !!! – look , as he wanders up smiling and shaking his head .
Now the Japanese have a concept called "honoured guest" which consists of your hosts treating you like royalty , no exaggeration everything is paid for :-
transportation , admission , food etc etc etc , and if you refuse this you insult your hosts , additionally Atsu took a precious day off work to be my guide and I use the word precious very very carefully here as she only has 10 days holiday per year , yes that's right only 10 days - puts things in to perspective really.
Takayuki is an ambient musician by trade and whilst he could understand English he couldn't speak it very well and he asked Atsu to apologise for him not being able to speak it well , my reply was - your English is way better than my Japanese so no worries , which cheered him up no end , but was totally true nether the less.
Takayuki gave me two of his c.d.'s , and if ambient / electronic music is your thing , check him out -
10th Eye
It's excellent stuff - indeed .
I jokingly said to him as he was a musician he must have loads of female fans chasing him about , he said no such luck as this type of music was mainly liked by guys in Japan - tough luck mate , he then said something that stopped me dead in my tracks , jaw hitting the ground type stuff which is very very rare with me .
Now as you all know I love abstract photographs and I have sent the odd one to my friends in the far east and un be known to me my photo's actually inspire him to write music , and this was the point at which my jaw hit the ground and I was absolutely speechless for one of the first times in my life , I love photography but never ever stopped to think i may creatively inspire others , that's an alien concept to me.
Anyway 10 minutes ( or so it felt) later my composure drawn again , actually I'm glad I had my sunglasses on at this point , I say if he want's to use any of my stuff on his c.d. artwork he's welcome , one good turn deserves another I think.
We all went to a proper "sit on the floor , shoes off " Japanese restaurant and ate far eastern delicacies of all kinds including - octopus , eel's and an ancient Japanese desert called Kuzu Kiri which consisted of gelatine strips with caramel sauce poured over it , the latter proved very difficult to eat with chopsticks - well for me anyway and Atsu had thoughtfully packed a western fork in her bag for me , I had great delight in winding her up about the fork saying "I hope she haven't stolen that" , which totally cracked her up.
We visited a shrine later and I performed an ancient ritual , to get a wish , now I'd noticed an elderly lady praying there for a long long time , so my wish was to help remove her troubles as it looked like she had far many than I - nothing like giving a little.
Actually Atsu mentioned in passing the Yakuza headquarters was near to the shrine and they prayed there , so guess who had great delight in winding her up over this.
We were walking away from the shrine and I dived in to an alley shouting " look that guy's got a finger missing" and " look at those tattoo's , which cracked her up every time , and now as I'm writing this I'm thinking I dread to think what would have happened if The Yakuza had walked in on my antics - chop suey maybe ?
( yes , yes I know its Chinese , but it sound's better - doesn't it )
Part 4
Throughout the holiday , I took many photo's regarding what I thought were the very different images of Japan , but there was always the elusive one that got
away …………………..
For some reason I don't usually photograph people and then only if I have their permission .Some nights in a busy part of Shinjuku there was a youngish woman stood totally motionless against a pillar dressed in a very austere fashion , with a simple sign around her neck in Japanese , this image absolutely and utterly intrigued me , but unfortunately she declined to let me photograph her which I totally
respected , it was a shame as this was a true image of Japan - nevermind.
I never got to D.J. this time , but went to a place called Anti-Knock in Tokyo which was what the Japanese call a live house i.e. a venue with live bands playing , and in my case hardcore Japanese metal bands. Hardcore metal is a brutal , rapid fire type of music originating from the streets of the West and played in small clubs at full volume , and the unique Japanese version has got to be seen to be believed , its basically full throttle metal wall of noise with 100 mph vocals in Japanese , one of the singers got so carried away he decided in true performing art fashion to smash all the stage spotlights to bits, showering himself in glass in true hardcore style.
The second time I visited Anti- Knock it was a more "civilised "rock night with art , food d.j. and guitar driven bands in the style of Red Hot Chilli Pepper / Nirvana etc .
The bands seemed to joke a lot with the audience between songs and it seemed like they were telling jokes rather like a Japanese version of the old English joke -
"have you heard the one about the Englishmen , Irishmen and Scotsman……. , although it will have probably have been" have you heard the one about the
Tokyo (ite) , Osaka (n) and Koyoto (an) "…………. , anyway the last band on the bill took even me aback being a Japanese version of Pulp and The Smiths combined .
The singer actually looked like a Japanese Jarvis Cocker ( Pulp)- yes work that one out if you can - I still haven't , but to be honest it was a really entertaining evening regardless and the late evening stroll in the 70 degrees air via the red light area, was……. hmmmm how shall I put this ……….entertaining too……………..
The details of which I'll leave to your vivid imaginations…………………….
Part 5
Kiyomi and Yumi are two Japanese friend's who I had hooked up with in Tokyo to go see the bay area , via the spooky driverless monorail .
Kiyomi had brought her friend Yumi along because she had such a bad sense of direction , and she wasn't exaggerating either , and in the end I jokingly took a photo of Kiyomi pointing to her home on the map and suggested she carry it with her at all times and show it to strangers when she got lost , and I insisted she thwack me for my cheek.
For lunch we had a Japanese style pasta dish in an Italian looking restaurant which was very nice , it had an open style kitchen and all the chefs shouted at you coming in through the door , this took me aback , so I just gave them the horns - which cracked them up completely .
The "problem" then as in Osaka , with going in to restaurants with Japanese people meant the staff naturally thought you could speak fluent Japanese and I had rapid fire questions put to me by them , and my face must have looked an absolute picture of terror in these situations, as I hid behind my hand asking my friends to translate.
Later on in the afternoon we were passing a stall which sold food and my two guides said we must try some of the dishes they were selling.
The food actually looked like a desert called Choux buns ( which is dough balls filled with cream and has chocolate sauce poured over it ) to me , so i just said yes , and took a mouthful - it was squid !!!
I think it was more the shock of expecting a sweet desert dish and getting seafood more than anything , but i did eat all of the squid , albeit through gritted teeth ,
mind you earlier they did ask if there was any kind of food I didn't like and squid wasn't on my no- no list .
The weather was 80 - 90 degrees F ( 27 - 32 C ) and sunny in Japan for the majority of the two weeks as opposed to 57 F ( 14 C ) cloudy / breezy in the U.K. when I left, incidentally it was the same when I returned too - marvellous ! , I had promised to photograph the infamous umbrella condoms for Suzanne but it never rained once hence I never saw hide nor hair of them - sorry S.
The most popular foreign car in Tokyo is still The Mini by the way although some Japanese micro cars make it look absolutely huge , my favourite Japanese car still remains The Scion ( made by Toyota) too , and for every one car there still seems to be three taxi's too.
Now I'm always banging on about how marvellous the standard of service is in Japan , but there is an exception - that's right you guessed it the local Harley shop ! .The service in that place was worse than my local shop in the U.K. and that's really saying something ! , and I can only assume after visiting various dealers in different countries Harley Davidson must train their staff to act in this way , as this bad service is obviously a global thing .Later on and after walking out of the Harley shop without buying anything - understandably , I was sat on a seat eating some food and noticed a lot of people milling about wearing what I though was martial arts clothing , over the ensuing
10 minutes the amount of people got more and more and more , until there must have been about 70 – 100 people assembled .
Then one of the guys stood up on a box and started chanting to the assembled masses , who then produced what I later learnt was a mobile shrine carried head high by about 30 of them from nowhere , they then began to chant rhythmically to the drums and charge toward the guy on the box , stopping inches from his head moved back and repeated the charge several times, all in a choreographed movement .
To the casual onlooker like myself it was hypnotic being drawn in to what was obviously an ancient ceremony , although to be honest I didn't really have a clue what was going on , but the total experience was fantastic, I always reckon participating in unexpected events are the best and this certainly was .
That's all for the moment and I've got no doubt what so ever I've missed bits out but I'll post them when and if I remember , may even put a few photo's on here too , and yes I am going back next year too , before anyone asks.
The best stories start at the end apparently, although my "problem" with this one is I don't know where the end actually is ………………………
Maybe standing in Heathrow airport listening to the brainless chavs shouting down their mobile phones whilst standing in front of a no mobile phones sign ? , or how about walking out in to my garden the first day back and taking in the cool air and birdsong maybe ? or opening a letter on the self same morning from a prospective employer asking me to attend a test session after I'd been awake for 25 hrs straight - I declined the offer - needless to say .
Rewind two weeks and you have me stood in front of the Virgin check in desk with the company "demanding with menaces" an extra £40 carbon footprint tax , which was payable on a retrospective basis – ha at least Dick Turpin - highwayman extraordinaire - wore a mask , but anyway needless to say the ensuing flight was a pleasure otherwise , all champagne and proper food on china plates with me unable to sleep instead watching an interesting social comment film amongst others called This is England – highly recommended if you like this kind of stuff , but a bit bleak in parts- typical Channel 4 really .
Narita airport still has the wonderfully quaint neatly trimmed 1950's name sign cut in the grass , I notice as the plane slews to a halt after 12 hours , oh yes while I remember I got stopped by Japanese customs and searched too , they got me after all these years - your thinking , hmmm yes - well if you can call politely taking a two second peek inside your case a search .
The hotel was the same as last year the fantastic Keio Plaza in Shinjuku and unlike last year there were none of our German friends causing mayhem in the check in queue , and when I checked in I was unexpectedly presented with two weeks worth of free breakfast vouchers which saved me quiet a lot of money and in doing so paid for Tony's carbon footprint tax., but who pays for his worldwide farewell tour I ask ?
( oooohhh a little bit of political comment here - bet you thought I was slipping).
Part 2
A few days later I was sat on the wall watching the massive semi tame crows get fed in Ueno park when I noticed a Japanese guy carrying two sticks walking my way , he must have been about 45-50yrs and from his attire I guess he was one of the street
people . He said good morning to me in English and then proceeded to have a long conversation about a wide range of topics in very good English , so he was not your average down and out - bi lingual and obviously intelligent , I never did ask him about him self , as it seemed too personal a question at the time .
Anyway a well dressed business type walked past and made what I regarded was a sharp remark to my friend , I asked the business guy what he had just said and he replied he'd said to my friend to "stop bothering the tourists" , now I can understand to an extent his sentiments , but this street guy wasn't asking for money or bothering me in any way , so I just said thanks for his concern and got back to the interesting conversation .
Wandering around Shinjuku I noticed a place called Krispy Kreams ,which I thought was simply a doughnut shop , but obviously not as the queuing time at most times of the day was a staggering two hours and there were two security guards to marshall the queue , I was sat on a wall waiting for a nearby shop called Tokyu Hands to open and an American guy walked past and asked me and asked -
"What's the queue for ??? .
" Doughnuts" - I replied .
"What - just doughnuts ? " - says he.
"Yup just doughnuts……….., tell you what I wouldn't queue for two hours if they were giving money away…………….. " - say's I .
He just walked off laughing……………………………..
Tokyu Hands had now opened and I was one of the first through the door , I was met by the sight of 15 or so identically dressed shop assistants at the head of every isle doing 90 degree bows as I and other customers walked past
( rather like the jewellery department incident of last year ) , this like the last time totally and utterly freaked me out , I won't be first in a shop again - believe me .
They are obviously still oblivious to western swear words in Japan as one of the tracks playing on the shop stereo system was gangsta rap with absolutely loads of swearing in it , and there was quiet a few kids generally inTokyo with t – shirts emblazoned with swear words too , not that either offends me by the way.
I suppose the parody would be Japanese kids wandering round western cites with swear words in Japanese script , which would be unreadable to the average westerner, thus no offence taken.
Part 3
I had arranged a trip to Osaka on the Bullet Train ( Shinkansen ) to meet a couple of Japanese friends of mine Atsu and Takayuki .
There are three types of Bullet trains two Dan Dare ( esque ) ones and one that looks like Concorde , but all three look like a wide and spacious aircraft cabin inside and they all run along a purpose built track at a "mere" 300mph , which you can't really feel as like in an aircraft you have no real sensation of speed , I took a photo out of the window and it was just a blur incidentally .
Three hours later your in Osaka , I get cleaned up and wander off to visit the absolutely stunning Osaka Castle and then back to the hotel lobby to meet Atsu and Takayuki , and I am immediately hit with a vision of Atsu shouting my name and flinging herself at me full tilt , nearly knocked me flying , Takayuki following along then gives me the universal – women !!! – look , as he wanders up smiling and shaking his head .
Now the Japanese have a concept called "honoured guest" which consists of your hosts treating you like royalty , no exaggeration everything is paid for :-
transportation , admission , food etc etc etc , and if you refuse this you insult your hosts , additionally Atsu took a precious day off work to be my guide and I use the word precious very very carefully here as she only has 10 days holiday per year , yes that's right only 10 days - puts things in to perspective really.
Takayuki is an ambient musician by trade and whilst he could understand English he couldn't speak it very well and he asked Atsu to apologise for him not being able to speak it well , my reply was - your English is way better than my Japanese so no worries , which cheered him up no end , but was totally true nether the less.
Takayuki gave me two of his c.d.'s , and if ambient / electronic music is your thing , check him out -
10th Eye
It's excellent stuff - indeed .
I jokingly said to him as he was a musician he must have loads of female fans chasing him about , he said no such luck as this type of music was mainly liked by guys in Japan - tough luck mate , he then said something that stopped me dead in my tracks , jaw hitting the ground type stuff which is very very rare with me .
Now as you all know I love abstract photographs and I have sent the odd one to my friends in the far east and un be known to me my photo's actually inspire him to write music , and this was the point at which my jaw hit the ground and I was absolutely speechless for one of the first times in my life , I love photography but never ever stopped to think i may creatively inspire others , that's an alien concept to me.
Anyway 10 minutes ( or so it felt) later my composure drawn again , actually I'm glad I had my sunglasses on at this point , I say if he want's to use any of my stuff on his c.d. artwork he's welcome , one good turn deserves another I think.
We all went to a proper "sit on the floor , shoes off " Japanese restaurant and ate far eastern delicacies of all kinds including - octopus , eel's and an ancient Japanese desert called Kuzu Kiri which consisted of gelatine strips with caramel sauce poured over it , the latter proved very difficult to eat with chopsticks - well for me anyway and Atsu had thoughtfully packed a western fork in her bag for me , I had great delight in winding her up about the fork saying "I hope she haven't stolen that" , which totally cracked her up.
We visited a shrine later and I performed an ancient ritual , to get a wish , now I'd noticed an elderly lady praying there for a long long time , so my wish was to help remove her troubles as it looked like she had far many than I - nothing like giving a little.
Actually Atsu mentioned in passing the Yakuza headquarters was near to the shrine and they prayed there , so guess who had great delight in winding her up over this.
We were walking away from the shrine and I dived in to an alley shouting " look that guy's got a finger missing" and " look at those tattoo's , which cracked her up every time , and now as I'm writing this I'm thinking I dread to think what would have happened if The Yakuza had walked in on my antics - chop suey maybe ?
( yes , yes I know its Chinese , but it sound's better - doesn't it )
Part 4
Throughout the holiday , I took many photo's regarding what I thought were the very different images of Japan , but there was always the elusive one that got
away …………………..
For some reason I don't usually photograph people and then only if I have their permission .Some nights in a busy part of Shinjuku there was a youngish woman stood totally motionless against a pillar dressed in a very austere fashion , with a simple sign around her neck in Japanese , this image absolutely and utterly intrigued me , but unfortunately she declined to let me photograph her which I totally
respected , it was a shame as this was a true image of Japan - nevermind.
I never got to D.J. this time , but went to a place called Anti-Knock in Tokyo which was what the Japanese call a live house i.e. a venue with live bands playing , and in my case hardcore Japanese metal bands. Hardcore metal is a brutal , rapid fire type of music originating from the streets of the West and played in small clubs at full volume , and the unique Japanese version has got to be seen to be believed , its basically full throttle metal wall of noise with 100 mph vocals in Japanese , one of the singers got so carried away he decided in true performing art fashion to smash all the stage spotlights to bits, showering himself in glass in true hardcore style.
The second time I visited Anti- Knock it was a more "civilised "rock night with art , food d.j. and guitar driven bands in the style of Red Hot Chilli Pepper / Nirvana etc .
The bands seemed to joke a lot with the audience between songs and it seemed like they were telling jokes rather like a Japanese version of the old English joke -
"have you heard the one about the Englishmen , Irishmen and Scotsman……. , although it will have probably have been" have you heard the one about the
Tokyo (ite) , Osaka (n) and Koyoto (an) "…………. , anyway the last band on the bill took even me aback being a Japanese version of Pulp and The Smiths combined .
The singer actually looked like a Japanese Jarvis Cocker ( Pulp)- yes work that one out if you can - I still haven't , but to be honest it was a really entertaining evening regardless and the late evening stroll in the 70 degrees air via the red light area, was……. hmmmm how shall I put this ……….entertaining too……………..
The details of which I'll leave to your vivid imaginations…………………….
Part 5
Kiyomi and Yumi are two Japanese friend's who I had hooked up with in Tokyo to go see the bay area , via the spooky driverless monorail .
Kiyomi had brought her friend Yumi along because she had such a bad sense of direction , and she wasn't exaggerating either , and in the end I jokingly took a photo of Kiyomi pointing to her home on the map and suggested she carry it with her at all times and show it to strangers when she got lost , and I insisted she thwack me for my cheek.
For lunch we had a Japanese style pasta dish in an Italian looking restaurant which was very nice , it had an open style kitchen and all the chefs shouted at you coming in through the door , this took me aback , so I just gave them the horns - which cracked them up completely .
The "problem" then as in Osaka , with going in to restaurants with Japanese people meant the staff naturally thought you could speak fluent Japanese and I had rapid fire questions put to me by them , and my face must have looked an absolute picture of terror in these situations, as I hid behind my hand asking my friends to translate.
Later on in the afternoon we were passing a stall which sold food and my two guides said we must try some of the dishes they were selling.
The food actually looked like a desert called Choux buns ( which is dough balls filled with cream and has chocolate sauce poured over it ) to me , so i just said yes , and took a mouthful - it was squid !!!
I think it was more the shock of expecting a sweet desert dish and getting seafood more than anything , but i did eat all of the squid , albeit through gritted teeth ,
mind you earlier they did ask if there was any kind of food I didn't like and squid wasn't on my no- no list .
The weather was 80 - 90 degrees F ( 27 - 32 C ) and sunny in Japan for the majority of the two weeks as opposed to 57 F ( 14 C ) cloudy / breezy in the U.K. when I left, incidentally it was the same when I returned too - marvellous ! , I had promised to photograph the infamous umbrella condoms for Suzanne but it never rained once hence I never saw hide nor hair of them - sorry S.
The most popular foreign car in Tokyo is still The Mini by the way although some Japanese micro cars make it look absolutely huge , my favourite Japanese car still remains The Scion ( made by Toyota) too , and for every one car there still seems to be three taxi's too.
Now I'm always banging on about how marvellous the standard of service is in Japan , but there is an exception - that's right you guessed it the local Harley shop ! .The service in that place was worse than my local shop in the U.K. and that's really saying something ! , and I can only assume after visiting various dealers in different countries Harley Davidson must train their staff to act in this way , as this bad service is obviously a global thing .Later on and after walking out of the Harley shop without buying anything - understandably , I was sat on a seat eating some food and noticed a lot of people milling about wearing what I though was martial arts clothing , over the ensuing
10 minutes the amount of people got more and more and more , until there must have been about 70 – 100 people assembled .
Then one of the guys stood up on a box and started chanting to the assembled masses , who then produced what I later learnt was a mobile shrine carried head high by about 30 of them from nowhere , they then began to chant rhythmically to the drums and charge toward the guy on the box , stopping inches from his head moved back and repeated the charge several times, all in a choreographed movement .
To the casual onlooker like myself it was hypnotic being drawn in to what was obviously an ancient ceremony , although to be honest I didn't really have a clue what was going on , but the total experience was fantastic, I always reckon participating in unexpected events are the best and this certainly was .
That's all for the moment and I've got no doubt what so ever I've missed bits out but I'll post them when and if I remember , may even put a few photo's on here too , and yes I am going back next year too , before anyone asks.
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