My baby’s back!
Shibuya streets… every visit, something new pokes its head out at you. Taken with the Powershot G3. Yes, the sensors need cleaning desperately.
The first picture with the new improved 300D. Hallelujah.
Everywhere you go there are signs of the coming pink storm! Plastic cherry blossoms adorn every shopping street in Japan.
And they’re in balloon form too….
Picked up the newly repaired Canon 300D (mah baby) from Fujiya this afternoon. Walked outside and pointed up at a sign and clicked and WOW! A nice healthy, heavy shutter sound, the automatic focus worked, the images were clear as crystal thanks to the new parts and clean sensors and suddenly I felt like blogging again. And not a second too soon, as:
1. the old powershot G3 is on it’s way out – the images have long lost their sharpness and colour. I should get the sensors cleaned as I do really love the old workhorse….
2. hanami is almost upon us….
3. started to get emails asking me why I’ve been so quiet on the blog…
Technorati Tags: japan, last.fm, life, tokyogigguide, tokyo
Araku rocks…
If I’m in Shinjuku for a drink and needing some place with a bit of atmosphere, I usually head to Golden Gai. I’ve written about it plenty of times before. It is a collection of cool little bars tucked away in a little part of Shinjuku, in cool, ramshackle, surprisingly clean little alleys, with plenty of history and character deeply imprinted into the walls.
If you ever make your way into Golden Gai, make sure you make time to drop in to Araku, my friend Tracey’s bar. Actually, I believe it’s her families bar… That’s her brother, Richard to the right and boyfriend/bartender extraordinaire, Ashley on the left in the above pic. They are all Australians and long term Japan residents (and actually, Tracey and Richard are the team that bring you the eternally useful mobile phone service TangoTown). Anyways, I digress, as I am often wont to do.
I dropped in there on Friday night for the first time and had a delightful time. Tracey and Ash run the bar on Wednesday and Friday nights, and on other nights of the week the place is staffed by fully bilingual staff so it’s a great place to go if your Japanese isn’t so great (in Golden Gai, if you don’t speak much Japanese you can have a hard time….. ). Anyways, that makes it good for international visitors who can’t speak any Japanese (erm, and the rest of us who are lazy to apply ourselves to extensive Japanese study). It’s got heaps of room, another unusual feature in Golden Gai where the average bar seats about 6 – 10 people…. Araku has room for around 20/25 people, and actually – there were about that many people in there on Friday night. It was pumping. They sell great Australian wines and a range of nibblies too. Open till dawn. Go ch-ch-check it out! (How to find Araku)
Here’s Sarah and Tracey being really still and sultry for the low-light photo… (god, can’t wait till my big camera is back from the shop!)
Technorati Tags: flickr, friends, japan, goldengai, puppy, shinjuku, tokyo
I miss the good, old-fashioned summer storms of Australia!
Last nights weather in Tokyo was quite typhoon-like, with with up to 50 knot winds and rain. By 9 p.m. it was all over, and by 10 we could see the moon. Seems there was a lot of wild weather around the region last night! These spectacular pic’s were emailed to me by my cousin Georgia who was cycling home in this phenomenal electrical storm in Sydney. Aren’t they amazing! I really miss big wild electrical storms, summer doesn’t seem complete without at least a few massive storms. Haven’t seen a really big one (like this one in the photos) for a couple of years now although there was a pretty good show late one night here in Tokes at the end of summer last year.
Being thrown out of my gym has started me drinking again. Another hangover today and serious thoughts about leaving Japan again (where we are ever the outsiders), despite the good things going on in my life here. One good thing: the gym has had a change of heart and are going to refund my money. Their ‚Äúexcuse‚Äù: they didn’t show me the English page stating that tattoo’s are explicitly not allowed (I think it was just that the voices of reason from within the office there finally got heard). I could wax long and lyrical about my experience with this horrible situation but I am just so frikken angry and astonished at the way it was handled that it would just end up in a big negative rant. So I shall spare you. And here endeth the story.
Obi
One of my students turned up to class wearing this magnificent obi (the cloth piece that wraps around the waist of a kimono). Never really seen one like it so of course, had to photograph it. It’s such a shame the kimono is becoming so rare. It’s such a beautiful (if impractical) garment. The fabrics used for kimonos and obis are quite breathtaking. It’s easy to stand in a kimono shop and want to caress everything in sight. Think I’ll have to collect some more….
There are some new pic’s up at flickr – just happy snaps of some buddies who dropped in to the exhibition over the past few weeks.
Technorati Tags: japan
Tokyomade Online Shop: Tokyo style by Tokyo and Japan-based designers
Tokyomade Online Shop: Tokyo style by Tokyo and Japan-based designers: Brizzy [Brizzy = Brisbane, my home town] girl Deanne and her BF have been working hard to get together an online shop of cool Tokyo stuff and today is the big launch day. Happy Valentines Deanne! Good luck with Tokyomade, I’m sure it’ll do really well – hell, I really want that midori romance bag on the home page. Damn, you have some fine taste!
Those Japanophiles out there living far away will, no doubt, find yourselves salivating at some of the tasty stuff you can buy. Go on, whip out those credit cards, you know you wanna!
[posted with ecto]
Technorati Tags: japan, news, onlineshopping, tokyo
TELL me about TOKYO
The Tokyo English Lifeline (TELL) is a non-profit community organisation that offers a range of counseling options, from anonymous phone counseling to professional, face to face counselling. I’ve done a bit of volunteer photography work for them from time to time and my friend Christian is one of the few PAID workers there – he coordinates the volunteers and does a lot of their PR and stuff. Anyway, a year ago TELL started compiling a handy list of useful information and contacts for the English speaking community in Tokyo and recently they released the information in a handy little book called ‚ÄúTell me about Tokyo‚Äù:
New Years Day 2007
After a leisurely New Years Day breakfast and coffee, we made the trek out to Asakusa to join the other million or so temple-goers to visit Sensoji, one of my fave temples. I’ve always avoided such New Years Day activities out of fear of crowds, but you know what?! It was a lovely day – full of amazing sights and sounds, and truly, the Japanese are masters at keeping it cool in often overwhelming crowds. No flaring tempers, just an electric, happy vibe. The way Sensoji is laid out made it easy to negotiate the crowds and get great photos without actually having to stand in the main line into the temple. The side areas were all laid out with stalls selling New Years paraphernalia and food and had a great atmosphere.
We were feeling pretty confident after negotiating the massive crowds for a few hours there so we decided to hit Meiji Jingu in Harajuku after that – arriving there just on sunset. Again, a beautiful atmosphere, full of excitement but no jostling or pushing and shoving at all. Amazing really when you consider the sheer numbers of people involved. Seriously millions in a day. I shit you not. It was cool to walk down the long gravel avenue with such a cross section of Japanese – families in traditional dress, young punks and goth-lolita types, cooler-than-cool dudes, stylin’ chicks, old people, kids, couples, tourists – everyone heading in the same direction, to do the same thing: pray for the new year, in this electric atmosphere. Quite special really.
The day was also exciting for me because I got to shoot the whole thing on borrowed lenses: a Sigma 24 – 70 MM 2.8 and a Canon 10 -22 MM 3.5, and I decided to test my new software and shoot in RAW format for the first time ever. I’m pretty happy with the results and am relieved to realise that it’s not my camera that is crappy – it’s just the lens I’ve been using. I’m kinda shocked that Canon would ship such an inferior lens as part of their Kiss/Rebel kit! Anyway, You can see more photos at the New Years Day 2007 photoset at Flickr.
And all the best to you all for a great 2007.
Technorati Tags: japan, photography, meiji jingu, shibuya, streets, tokyo
Fucking laugh big loud on train
Sometimes communicating with the locals can be a little mind-altering. Between my bad (but improving, to be sure to be sure) Japanese and their bad English, though, we somehow manage to make ourselves understood. And it’s a fun, creative process, one that has endeared itself to me. The art of communication, with all it’s cultural and personal eccentricities, brings me great delight (and regular frustration)… Not content to just sit back, soak up and correct the dodgy Engrish we hear and read all around us all day, every day as English teachers, MissSin & I have chosen to celebrate – with a full embrace, everything we love about Engrish.
How do we do this? Read on, read on. I hope you laugh a lot.
Technorati Tags: friends, funny, japan, life, teachingenglish
The Silly Season
Einstein is alive and well and hiding out in the little bars in Kichijoji’s red light district….
These hilarious JR (Japan Rail) posters warn salary men about getting too drunk and falling off the platform in this crazy silly party season….. Hilarious because of their screamingly accurate portrayal of a drunk suit.
Technorati Tags: funny, japan, kichijoji, life, photography, streets, tokyo
„Åó„ÅÇ„Çè„Åõ (Shiawase): A fortunate life.
4 years in Japan. I was thinking of calling this post “the girl who stopped running” but that seemed kinda naff and I figured “a fortunate life” was more adult and appropriate. Reasons for my fortunate life:
A beautiful part of the world
It’s been indescribably beautiful in my part of the world recently. The Autumn colours have really kicked in and the weather has been magnificent with blue sky days and relatively warm days. I have started editing some pics from Inokashira Koen – taken especially for Uncle Don, they will be landing in the 2006 Autumn Flickr Set over the coming days.
You can also see some silly social party pics from my B-day week shenanigans at Flickr too.
Still having email problems – please use martinecotton@gmail.com for any emails.
Technorati Tags: flickr, inokashirakoen, japan, kichijoji, photography, tokyo
This week in pic’s
Haku is a hilariously cheeky Chinese boy I know. I’m photographing the boogers up his nose here. No actually, I was trying to catch his beautiful brown eyes but failed miserably. Still, I like this photo a lot.
I stumbled upon this scene in Kichijoji last weekend.
Charlene at our fave kichijoji bar
!Beatdown! punks getting drunk
Add a couple of other late nights with J-buddies, an all-nighter in a colour-developing photo darkroom in Shinjuku (with no heating), and then visualize about 32 English lessons (and their preparation) in various school rooms, community centres and cafe’s around Tokyo…. and you will understand why I slept 12 hours last night. Really gotta settle down on the burning-the-candle-at-both-ends-thing. Ha! Off to the pool, need to de-calcify my back. Have a great weekend ya’ll.
Technorati Tags: friends, funny, japan, kichijoji, parties, photography, streets
Finished the Mitake photos
Finished the Mitake-san photoset at Flickr. Go take a look when you have some free time. Better still, just go and visit Mitake-san when you get a chance!
Gotta talk music for a minute. Goddamn, I just can’t get enough of Band of Horses at the moment. The album Everything all the Time must surely rate as one of the finest rock albums of 2006.
Other stuff that’s been rocking my world of late:
TV on the Radio (excellent rock/pop stuff),
Tunng (sublimely cool earthy folk electronica),
DJ Harvey (yes, DJ not PJ – special thanks to Ta-Ching for this one. Perhaps the most eclectic DJ Producer since LCD Sound Systems’ James Murphy) and
Charlotte Gainsbourg (yes, Serge’s daughter – Ta-Ching also gave me this one. Ethereal pop).
Technorati Tags: flickr, hiking, japan, photography, tokyo
Another fabulous weekend in Tokyo
It’s been a great weekend. Actually, after a week of illness I wasn’t sure I’d be leaving the house at all over the weekend but I was determined to just soldier on.
Technorati Tags: hiking, japan, photography, tokyo, travel
W.I.G. out. Part One
Today was the inaugural W.I.G. out event. I haven’t mentioned W.I.G. here yet and I really should have written about it when I got home last night and posted this entry but I was a wee bit tipsy and forgot.
W.I.G.: Warm Inner Glow. The name of our new club.
Kat, Christian and I are all Brisbane kids (from the same town in sub-tropical Queensland) and we hate winter with a passion. It sends us all quite batty. In a bad way. So we have come up with an experimental defense plan… The Warm Inner Glow club will have monthly expeditions all through winter designed specifically to cheer up we pathetic little tropical kids. Octobers W.I.G. Out was Christian’s plan, November will be mine (which will be easy coz it’s my Bday month although Kat and Daz will be in The States for most of the month) and December will be Kat’s plan.
2/3rds of the W.I.G. Out club spent the day at the Earth Festival at Yoyogi today. Fabulous, and the plan worked, not only were we full of warm-inner-glow but also beer and general merriment. Kat was off with an old friend recovering from last nights Peaches show last night and enjoying an onsen, but she’ll definitely be at the next one! A few more random shots over at Flickr.
Technorati Tags: funny, japan, parties, photography, portraits, tokyo
Yamanakako
Please slip on over to my Flickr photostream to see some photos from my fabulous trip out to Yamanakako on Sunday to Tuesday. Thanks so much to my old mate Stephen for his kindness and hospitality! We had a great time just hangin’ out and drinking and watching anime.
On Monday, I took a solitary walk around the lake – 14 km’s, stopping every so often at deserted cafes to warm up and drink bad coffee. This lake sits quite literally at the absolute foot of Mt Fuji (see this old picture here to get an idea) and is surrounded by forests and mountains so it’s quite picturesque. If you go in mid-winter, you may even get a chance to do some ice-fishing when the lake freezes over. On Monday it was totally overcast and cold and windswept and Fuji-san was nowhere to be seen.
There is something very eerily soulful and wild about the shabby old tourist traps in country Japan in the off-season. I don’t miss living out there too much, but I do feel its pull every so often. I think I’ll go again soon.
Technorati Tags: flickr, japan, photography, travelphotography
Holla!!!!
I apologize for this break in regular programming to make a public EUREKA announcement…..
O.MI.GOD I found a pair of decent flat heeled boots right here in Tokyo. Those who reside here will know why this is exciting news: No ridiculous stiletto heels. No stupidly thin calf-width size (they actually zip up all the way!). Just decent, cool, practical, stylin’ boots I can wear every day. Un-fucking-believable! I love them. Where did I make this unbelievable find? Harajuku? No! Shibuya? No! Ginza? No! It was in Kichijoji Tokyu! Yes, that hallowed hall of heavily powdered obaasans in their pumps and glasses and brooches (I was there for turtle food!)… I know I have a pair of handmade Pendragon Boots arriving sometime soon but it’s just getting too cold at night and my old boots were literally falling apart (one zip held together with a safety pin) – I couldn’t wait any more…
And now, back to our regular programming…
Technorati Tags: japan
Komichii Festival
Breakdance show
Look closely – one kid is popping on one hand, the other is doing the splits in midair – I wrote about these kids before actually…
The breakdance boyz
Dance club girls
Dance club girls in action
Me and Wataru. He told me once after running into him in random streets all over Tokyo for like the 350th time that it’s our fate to be friends. He’s a special kid, utterly hilarious and wise beyond his years.
These two ratbags hang out in the park way too much. Tim the-punk-rock-pimp asked them on Friday night what they were doing, riding their bikes around, expecting some half-baked school boy reply, and when they replied in perfect English, ‚Äúoh you know man, we’re just cruisin’‚Äù, Timbo had to do something of a double-take. I’ve been teaching Tomo, on the left, for 3 years straight. He’s such a *dude*.
These kids are actually from the Junior High School. What is it about J-boys and cross-dressing? They do it so damn well.
Spent the day at the annual school festival today and had a blast. The kids put so much time and effort into putting on a great show with heaps of fun stalls and great food to eat, not to mention the near-professional performances they spend months fine-tuning. The senior kids especially do it all with a great deal of gusto, because their school days are coming to a close. They finish up in December, ahead of the other kids who finish in February.
This year is going to be really sad coz the seniors leaving are the first kids I ever taught there, and they are my special ones… Notoriously naughty, full of character and sass – I run into them down in the park a little too often… (usually at night, when I’m drinking with my friends). Gonna miss them so. Most of the pics above are of the seniors. It’s my special tribute to them.
Technorati Tags: events, friends, japan, photography, school, tokyo
Hot! Hot! Hot!
This post is for my Australian friends who don’t understand how hot Japanese guys can be. Really, really, really hot. Forget about the old guard in their black suits and briefcases, the phenomenally exciting younger generations are tall, beautiful, stylish, casual, relaxed, creative, prolifically talented and want to break every possible cliche the world has about Japan.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the hottest man in Japan: talented actor, vocalist and musician, artist, director, designer and occasional model, Mr Tadanobu Asano. This is him on the May cover of the Hong Kong Esquire. He was also recently on the cover of Time Asia.
You’re welcome. (Sorry I couldn’t find a bigger version of this)
Going global
Recently I’ve been spending a lot more time with Japanese friends, honing my poor Japanese skills and drinking way too much. Ta-ching, Yama-chan and Minoru all work at the local Thai restaurant-bar. Last night, on my way home, I dropped in for a nightcap. Next thing I know, it’s 5.30 am, the sun is up, I’ve acquired a plastic bag full of CD’s and riding through the park dodging early morning joggers and empathizing with late night trainwrecks sprawled on park benches. Turns out Ta-ching are I are musical soulmates. The bar has a HUGE collection of music and we were on the floor rummaging through boxes full of CD’s like a pair of joyful kids for ages. Then they plugged the light-up globe and we spent hours going global.
I am determined not to be a Sunday blogger. 
Hence the Friday night post.
Apologies for the surly-ish tone in the last post. It had been a long hard busy week. I do appreciate the nomination. I just hate the pressure of trying to come up with interesting Japan-focused posts…. living in Japan is just what I do, I no longer notice anything unusual about any of it. I think that shows in my content. Anyway. Must be away. More drinking to do down in the park – it was a gorgeous day today, must make the most of it before the warmth disappears altogether.
Technorati Tags: friends, japan, kichijoji, photography, tokyo
wine-vision
As we sat up on the second level landing of the new wine bar in Harmonica Yokocho last night we were entertained by the antics of the local strays parading on the various awnings and roof overhangs around us. This ginger fella had a lovely face and was on constant patrol the whole time we were there. I love the dreamy light and movement in this photo, kinda like a painting. Ah, shooting and drinking is always interesting.
Harmonica Yokocho has been mentioned here before, and well, will no doubt be mentioned again. It’s a wonderful, atmospheric maze of tiny, bustling laneways just across the road from Kichijoji Station, full of cozy little bars and restaurants and great sounds and smells and friendly faces. I haven’t been there much since last winter, because I usually spend summer nights in the park with take-away beers and bento’s, but now that it’s almost too cold to hang out outside at night (already!!!), I’ll be seeing a lot more late nights in Harmonica Yokocho again… and in the lanes to the south of Nishi-Ogikubo Station… and the lanes under the Chuo line in Koenji… DAMN I live in a cool city. Life is good, albeit busy. It seems I’ve turned into a Sunday blogger again…. (* sigh)
Technorati Tags: animals, japan, kichijoji, photography, tokyo
JuggsVSJapan: front back and sides…
My very very ace old friend and former music colleague, Justin Dee (aka Juggs) and his partner Evette stayed at my place for a few weeks, and reluctantly packed up their mouldy futons a few days ago to head back to the Gold Coast. I have mentioned their regular shopping spree trips in other posts (they are both avid collectors and their impressive collection of dolls and character figures would put the 40 year old virgin to shame) but this trip was actually fueled by an even greater passion.
Technorati Tags: documentaries, friends, japan, kichijoji, portraits, streets, tokyo, video
