You Are Viewing Japan

With the first Rebuilt of Evangelion film hitting theatres in a month’s time the advertising onslaught is on, and what better strategem than to infiltrate the local ubiquitous コンビニ ? ( convenience stalls )

First off we have the Evangelion Doritos chips, followed by the iced milk coffee. Not a bad combination for an afternoon snack. The limited stamp collection was released a little earlier ago. These items were all cursory purchases; in that I didn’t set out specifically hunting for them but simply noticed it by accident, so there must be plenty of other merchandise out there for the EV fan.

Product placement through Anime is commonplace here in Japan, ( Freedom Project is an excellent example ), something which I feel creates considerable vibrancy and dynamism to both parties when executed skilfully. Sometimes “Product Placement” can be an oxymoron, because the very existence of the animation is to sell the product.

Evangelion Stamp Collection available here.

Traffic lights at a cross junction in Nishi-Ogikubo, where I cycle past everyday to and fro work. In Tokyo cross junctions allow you to well, cross diagonally (unlike Singapore), which can really be a live saver when one is in a hurry. Speaking of which, the busiest scramble crossing in Tokyo will have to be in Shibuya, made famous by Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation.

On planet Tokyo, people travel to work in elevators. I mean lifts. No I mean cars damn it. But cars are elevators. So are lifts cars too ? Or are elevators lifts ? I’m confused !!!!

The annual retreat back into wilderness and the embrace of everything natural continues this year with a 5 day travel itinerary to Takasaki in the Gunma Perfecture, hometown of my very good friend Takeshi. Here ample thanks and gratitude must be appropriated to my hosts Takeshi+Kojima whom without them this trip would never have been possible. We travelled far and wide for hours to distant mountains and waterfalls, cabbage farms so huge and wide it was like standing in the middle of the world; quiet, undiscovered villages that could only have appeared in quaint old Japanese films. One night a miraculously timed, passing glance into the starry skies had us catching a beautiful, long tailed shooting star. What are the odds.

Takeshi’s father is a farmer so every trip back to Takasaki is like a dietary detox session; an astonishing variety of homegrown vegetables are eaten and meat consumption drops to a virtual zero.

Kojima attempts a Kodak moment.

The Ito residence.

No, I didn’t digitally enhanced the colours on these flowers; they were of the very same intensity I saw with my own eyes, but Takeshi quickly informs : “Erm..these are actually the flowers of…weeds.” Killjoy.

Babes galore, rush hour in Shibuya station. This is but only half of the entire ad spread.

My second trip to Miyazaki’s Ghibli Museum. I must have been too excited during my first visit to have missed thess 3 blokes perched on the top of the entrance signboard. Charming folks.

Tokyo’s metropolitan landscape stretches as far as the eye can see from Ebisu’s Garden Place, as breathtaking as it is dizzying. Taking the elevator up to the top viewing levels I almost felt like a character playing in Otomo Katsuhiro’s Akira as I gazed upon this colossal, hulking entity, the hectic home to 12 million denizens.

A nice little farewell party for Hide,(seated) who having stayed with us for a memorable 4 months at Borderless Tanashi is now headed for greener pastures in Yokohama. After dinner and a considerable amount of booze we had ourselves a little Hanabi party, a closing event for the summer that is drawing to an end here in Tokyo.

Time to dig out those fudons soon.

A bbq party by the Arakawa River. Now these folks are really a lot crazier than they look. Photo courtesy of Mayo.

A new start calls for a fresh look, here in Japan as the seasons finally come full circle the blooming of the Cherry Blossoms symbolizes new beginnings, as with the commencement of my film school. Today folks from the various Borderless Tokyo houses got together for a Hanami party in Koganei Park, a cosmopolitan mix from Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, France, Germany, Korea, Australia, China and Sweden, and despite the dusty gails in the park sweeping in every now and then peppering our food with cherry blossom petals spirits were high as everyone got acquainted quickly, certainly the photo speaks just as much. These crazy blokes !

A flower shop in Daikayama, close to Shibuya about 10 minutes cycle from home. Fans of Luc Besson’s Leon have got to be smitten with this shop, watashi hajimete mita toki mo bikkuri. :]

Although I would had very much preferred a sloshed out, frenetic PVD treatment to celebrate the new year things turned out fairly different as we ended up in Meiji Jingu ( a famous Shrine in Harajuku where the Emperor chills out ) for a more traditional proceeding. Packed to the brim on New Year’s Eve every year everyone thronged to toss coins before the altar wishing for happiness and long life.