The new life.
282/365. April 11. Time for a more regular old-skool post.
I took this photo this morning at the Combined Club where I was having a work meeting while the clouds rolled in and the boats passed by. My little Lumix is a lovely camera, though I get frustrated at not having more control. But dem’s the breaks when you choose to carry a nice light point and shoot around instead of the big SLR kit. Anyways….
Almost 2 months since I left Tokyo. Feels like a lifetime ago already. People have been asking me just what I’ve been up to, how I’m really enjoying it. I’m happy to report that I *am* happy here.
I’ve been getting up early and going for longs walks/runs – first around the mountains near my bro’s place, then the beach and headland once I moved closer to town. The weather has been incredible – magical, the kind of blue skies so blue that resort photographers don’t need to retouch their pictures, and often not more than about 30 by day and cool enough for light summer blankets at night. All this nature, big wide skies….. It makes a jaded Tokyo girls heart sing, I tell ya. It’s been good getting on top of my health – turns out I have a pretty hefty Iron & B12 deficiency and it’s nice to work on all that in an English speaking environment so I can read the support material and ask the questions and understand the answers. So many things I am enjoying about NOT BEING in Japan anymore. And yet….
I see so many Asians around here (massive Asian population here, well, actually not here – but in Cairns an hour south), and I stare and stand close to listen to them in the hope they might be Japanese. Sometimes they are, and I stalk them with a wistful, nostalgic sensibility. Amusing how much I can understand, yet when I try to open my mouth to speak with them I usually have about 3 false starts. The Japanese food on offer here – even when made by Japanese staff – is different. The onegiri’s are not as fresh or tasty and the soba and udon is very average. The tempura is made using a strange batter, heavy and tasteless. I don’t understand why. It is so sad, I truly miss the flavours.
My work is pretty crazy. I am an event coordinator for the towns annual 10 day Carnivale, it’s full of politics and local characters and history and is way more work that the 20 hours a week I signed on for. I haven’t had a lot of time for photography – but I am getting some great work, nevertheless. I am a weekend photographer for the local newspaper – The Mossman & Port Douglas Gazette which is the weekly local newspaper, part of the News Ltd conglomerate. The editor there welcomed me with open arms and loves my photography and is throwing my name to anyone who needs photos, which is why I just did a food & portrait shoot for Vogue Entertaining & Travel Australia. Cool, huh. I am also getting real estate and the odd portrait job around the joint, did a young mum and her 3 week old baby yesterday – the pic’s are for the kids’ obasan who lives in Sendai. Yep, Daddy is half-nihonjin. I am working towards building the business so that once the Carnivale is over on May 31st, I can just jump straight into being a full time photographer (yeah, I know, I may be dreaming there). There is a lot of work here for photographers: hundreds of resorts and real estate agencies, and a massive wedding & events industry, there are not enough photographers to keep up with it all in the high season (which starts in May and runs till about November). Plus I’m helping my brother out with his real estate business, and once carnivale is over I’ll be his Media/PR person to help get the properties for sale out there for buyers.
The locals up here in the north are a funny bunch, they do take some getting used to and I do feel like a fish out of water at times. Or maybe like a rabbit trapped in headlights…. Big & loud & straight-shooting & blunt & super friendly, it took me aback initially, after living in Tokyo where eye-contact is to be avoided at all costs. I haven’t made a lot of friends here yet, but they are starting to come out of the woodwork. Getting used to epithets like darlin’, bub, sweetie, sugar, honeybunch etc from complete strangers – it initially made me chuckle, now it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I think I like it. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to like it here.
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Is it really 2 months?
275/365. April 4. Breakfast with Kat, Jake & Julie at a cool little cafe in Cairns – look at the size of the portions, dude. Insane. And delicious.
276/365. April 5 2009. The weather has been magnificent – this is the view from the top of the hill I climb most mornings.
277/365. April 6. These Blue Ulysses butterflies are everywhere.
Today is the 2 month anniversary of my Tokyo sayonara, Has it really been 2 months?
278/365: April 7. You had enough beach photo’s yet? I haven’t. Sorry, bear with me, it’ll work its way out of my system sooner or later. Or maybe not.
279/365. April 8. More real estate photography. You can see the ocean through the trees from this verandah.
280/365. April 9. The weather has turned, lots of storms and squalls. The ocean horizon is dark and close. I made a good friend today. She cooked a veggie bake for dinner and we sat up till the wee hours talking and drinking.
281/365. April 10. Woke up on the living room floor at my new friends house in a fragile state and vowed to never mix drinks again. The household slowly got up, had brekky before heading off for a drive to visit a friend of theirs in Whyanbeel. This was their living room. Gorgeously rustic and relaxed. Made a nice change from the horrible new white bland modern house I’m staying in at the moment. Only one week till I can move into my new apartment with its red walls and can start unpacking the boxes from Tokyo which – I believe – are finally in Cairns arriving on Tuesday. I have this dreadful urge to nest.
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Hangin’ out.
268/365. Mar 28. Flowers, flowers everywhere.
269/365. Mar 29. I took some pictures of the manager of Sea Temple Golf Course and the Carnivale Cup as a favour for him, to help promote the Port Douglas Golf Challenge Comp – a part of the Carnivale event I’m working on.
270/365. Mar 30. I cooked dinner for the family at my place. I didn’t actually take this picture – my 4 year old god daughter Evie did. That’s my brother David holding the wine glass to his eye. Great pic. Evie is a great photographer.
271/365. Mar 31. Sometimes the only marks on the beach are from animals….. crab balls, dog claw prints…..
272/365. April 1. I meet Nakea to take pic’s of her 3 week old. Beautiful baby. We got beautiful photo’s of him laid out on paperbark in the roots of a huge paperbark gum tree.
273/365. April 2. I visited my sister in laws parents at their house for a cuppa. They were babysitting Evie and her friend Kristen, who were having a great time at a tea party in the secret garden down the back.
274/365. April 3. My old Tokyo buddy Kat arrived in Cairns a few days ago, and was staying with her best friend from school, Julie. I took the afternoon off work and drove down to spent the night with them. It was great to see how much Jake has grown in the 2 months it’s been since I last saw him, and fantastic to see Kat – though she was utterly exhausted from the packing and move. It’s great to spend time with people who actually understand what it is to live in a foreign country, and to then return.
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Brisbane, Rosebank and back to Four Mile Beach..
261/365: Mar 21. A 3 hour breakfast at The Alibi Room with Mirko, Seja & Simon – the last time we 4 were together was about 4 years ago when they toured Japan. I love love love these gorgeously ace people. Breakfast was followed by a fabulous 3 hour lunch with Bronny and her kids Tsering and Pemma (sadly Tenzin was on tour down south somewhere), and an all night bender house party at Billy’s house. Got to catch up with a bunch of dear old friends, dress up in silly wigs and glasses and take trashy photos of everyone.
262/365: Mar 22. Woke up to a phone call from my other aunt with whom I had planned to have breakfast – I had slept in and missed our brekky date. Whoops. We ended up having a late-brunch cuppa and chat – it’s always good to catch up with her, then I made my way over to my old haunt: New Farm Park, to have a picnic with assorted old cronies. Jackie’s oldest, Tallulah and I went for a walk to see some friends off and she thought it’d be hilarious to crawl into a big bush and jump out of it. Got it on camera, lucky us. A lovely lovely day.
263/365: Mar 23. Leigh, Elisabeth and I met up at Mandy’s house for a morning cuppa before we drive up to Rosebank near Ipswich, to visit the cemetery where my parents grave is. Actually, my mum’s ashes were scattered in Mooloolaba harbour, so it’s just a memorial plaque for her here. But dad is here. Well, his ashes are. We have a family plot up there, it’s in a historical cemetery as we have some famous relatives, most notably my great uncle Sidney Cotton. An adventurous cad, wish I’d known him.
264/365. Mar 24. Back at work. Back in Port Douglas. Hello beach, I missed you.
265/365. Mar 25. Thank god, only 100 days left of this silly project. The photo for today, ladies and gentlemen, is an out take from my shoot for Vogue Entertaining & Travel Magazine. Yes, Vogue. I can now say that I can count Vogue as a client. Fabulous. I think Port Douglas is going to work out just fine for me.
266/365. March 26. That trip to Brisbane was an important one. It helped me see that – despite the awesome people and cool stuff – I need to be as far away from a city as possible for a while. So I’ll be staying in Port Douglas. I found a new place to live, a cute little one bedroom apartment in town, just a block from the beach. It has a red wall, and a red kitchen. I move in a couple of weeks.
267/365. Mar 27. More beach action. Coz the office is just so boring I don’t want to photograph it. Definitely working too many hours there. Way more than I agreed to.
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Lots of nature and a trip to Brisbane
254/365: Mar 14 2009. Curls of new growth and vines everywhere. Words like verdant and lush are almost understatements in this environment, in this season.
255/365: Mar 15. Went to a big pool party with the family. Everyone was part of a married couple, everyone had at least 1 kid but most had 2 or more (have you noticed that 3 is the new 2?). Everyone talked about their kids, or people/events I didn’t know, or sports. I was relieved that I couldn’t stay long due to some work commitments, and I didn’t go back after I finished working. But I had fun playing dodgeball with my nephews in the pool while I was there.
256/365. Mar 16. I am doing weekend photographs for the local newspaper, the Mossman & Port Douglas Gazette. I love it. I get to meet interesting people and go into their houses or workplaces and photograph them. This pond was in the open plan living area of a house up past Wonga Beach. The couple have an orchid nursery and a house built entirely by their own hands. To get it past the building inspectors who said the living space must be enclosed to keep it safe from rodents, they built a frame and draped netting over it. The bush rats chew holes in it and get in but they don’t mind.
257/365. Mar 17. I love having easy access to a beach. Today was my Dad’s birthday so I had a little walk down memory lane as I walked the beach in the morning.
258/365. Mar 18. Am doing some real estate photo work for my brother. We met at the Junction cafe in Mossman for a quick early coffee then headed up to Wonga Beach, 30 minutes north of Port Douglas to photograph a gorgeous house up there. Went for a quick walk to the beach – just in front of the house, and photographed the coming storm. We spent an hour there then drove back to town where I spent the rest of the day at the office where I work most days.
259/365. Mar 19. I worked a half day before Dave drove me to Cairns airport where I jumped a plane and flew to Brisbane, a 2 hour flight south. I stayed at my uncle’s place – a lovely old Queenslander style house, full of character. My cousin Anna gave me her room to sleep in. She has decorated this window frame with gems and rocks and it looks great. I adore my uncle’s family, they are so welcoming and relaxed, anything goes, nothing is a problem and they go to great lengths to provide support to me and my brothers family in any way they can. I like to think we do so in return. We had a great dinner and drank a little too much wine and rum (yes, rum. When in Rome….)
260/265, Mar 20. An iPhone pic of my dear old friend Elisabeth at The Tibetan Kitchen in West End. This day had been pretty fucked from the moment I woke up but she & I had a great time at dinner and out drinking afterwards, and so salvaged the day.
The day started going downhill when another dear friend, Jackie, called to say her middle daughter was sick and that she couldn’t join us for dinner. Then after another dear friend (Elisabeth’s sister, Mandy) dropped me off in the middle of buttf*ck nowhere to collect my freight cargo which had arrived from Tokyo – they told me I had to have my own customs agent before I could get my stuff out. Mandy had had to leave me to go to a medical appointment and then got rushed in to day surgery which meant that not only could she not come and get me but that she also couldn’t make it to dinner…..(not to mention the worries about her health which is, btw, all good now)
Anyways, I spent an hour with some customs agents who slammed me with an unexpected $1200 worth of customs/quarantine/permits/handling charges/storage fees etc and who told me it would take more than 72 hours before I could get my stuff. A mighty clusterf*ck indeed. I managed to be reasonably pleasant throughout the whole procedure despite being suspicious of all these charges, and disappointed beyond words that I wouldn’t be taking any of my stuff back to Port Douglas with me. I threw the towel in on the day and got a lift from buttf*ck nowhere into Toombul Shopping Town with one of the Customs Agents Staff, then caught a bus into the city and went to see the Watchmen at the movies before meeting up with Elisabeth for dinner & drinks.
Fortunately, the rest of my time in Brisbane more than made up for that horrid day. Read on…..
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A photo-a-day long overdue catchup.
247/365: Mar 7 2009. On one of my last days staying at my brother’s place, we were treated to a spectacular post-cyclonic sunset (I posted the video a few weeks back).
248/365: Mar 8 2009. Harry and I became great friends on our long walks & runs through the countryside.
249/365: Mar 9 – an iPhone picture of my oldest nephew, Darcy. I’ve been bad about getting my camera’s out since I added the CameraBag application to the iPhone.
250/365: Mar 10. Another iPhone pic, this one of my sister in law, Elissa. This woman is wonderful. This is not the most flattering picture of her – I had just dropped by the shop where she works for a quick visit and she was dismantling the outside displays and standing up high above me. But trust me when I say she is gorgeous and has the most amazing blue grey eyes I’ve ever seen and that without her and my brother, I would be fucked. They have taken care of me in the way only family can do. Unconditionally, unquestioningly and with joy.
251/365: Mar 11. This is the marker palm to indicate the beach entry point from far away down the beach. It stands tall and proud and does its job well. In front of it you can see some signs. They read:
- Caution: Marine Stingers.
- Dogs must be on leads.
All that beautiful ocean but it’s unsafe to swim in until around mid-May because it’s full of deadly jellyfish with long stinging tentacles. Well, not full of. But there are enough of them around to discourage the most foolhardy from a summers swim. Luckily there are plenty of swimming alternatives for the summer months. The mountains and foothills are full of fresh water creeks and swimming holes. Freshwater creeks don’t have salt-water crocodiles and are the safest and most refreshing alternatives to the beach.
252/365: Mar 12. Dewy. Lush. Verdant. I love the wet season. These flowers are just outside my office.
253/365: Mar 13. I moved into my new (temporary) place a few days ago. My new roomie is a very cool local community radio DJ, music lover and single mum. She got free tickets to a bunch of shows in Melbourne including these Kings of Leon tickets. Another iPhone pic.
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Wobbly hula dancers, hugs and lots of landscapes.
241/365: March 1 2009. The Sunday markets. This is Teya, we lived together for about 3 years way back in the early 90′s in a gorgeous open plan timber house in the rainforest in Kuranda. A bunch of girls lived there, the house was sometimes called The House Of Wimmin, we always had gentlemen callers and a stupidly long line up on dinner bowls spread across our kitchen bench most evenings. The were crazy, happy times. We sat in the afternoon sun, drinking pre-mixed vodka, talking about the old times and dreaming up our futures. I’m so happy we’ve hooked up again.
242/365: Mar 2. The weather has been glorious. I took this photo while doing a site reccy on Four Mile Beach, the location of the big “Family Beach Day” event I’m coordinating. If you are curious about what I’ve been up to on the work front, go check out www.carnivale.com.au and book your plane tickets. It’s a great 10 day event…… maybe not as amazing as Rio or the GLT Sydney Mardi Gras but certainly a hoot.
243/365: Mar 3. Happy Harry the Horse took me on a tour down the other, less-travelled end of the road this afternoon. The mountains are timeless.
244/365: Mar 4. These old Japanese fishnet glass floats can be found in houses all around the north – they used to wash up on the beaches constantly. I found new, touristy ones at Enoshima just outside Tokyo a few years back, and considered buying some. This one hangs out on the back deck outside the office where I work. Aren’t the colours just gorgeous.
245/365: Mar 5. Evie and her wobbly-hula dancer.
246/365: Mar 6. Took my brother, sister-n-law, and 2 other friends out to see my old friend and colleague KT doing her jazz show at the Cairns Tanks. We had a fantastic night, it’s not often Dave & Elissa get to go out in the big city (erm… Cairns, one hour away) without the kids. It was nice to hook up with KT again, it’ s been 6 years since we last hung out and well, after an intense year of working and touring together around Australia we parted on somewhat rocky terms. It was great to just hang out and catch up on each others news. The hugs were pretty good too. I’m looking forward to tea and bicky’s on their back deck when I make the southern rounds later in the year.
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Settling in…
234/365: Feb 22. Fairy parties are fill of sugar and spice and everything nice, like fairy bread and ice-cream cake and giggling girls being as silly, loud and energetic as possible.
235/365: Feb 23. The local creek/swimming waterhole – the halfway point of my sporadic morning run. The water here is fresh, cold and utterly exhilarating.
236/365: Feb 24. Happy Harry the Horse, my walking/running buddy. So named because he’s the happiest, friendliest and tartiest dog in the valley, and because the kids like to ride on his back. He is also possibly the smelliest dog I have ever known. All manner of decay awaits him on every walk, nothing is more delightful to him than getting into a rolling frenzy in some pile of putrid rotting whatever. Luckily for his human friends, he swims every day, but he also needs to be washed about 3 times a week.
237/365: Feb 25. Across the road….. if you squint you might just see the wallabies grazing on the left side of the dam.
238/365: Feb 26. The Community noticeboard. Cars, caravans and puppies for sale, rooms for rent and community events.
239/354: Feb 27. The colours of the tropics: blue and green.
240/365: Feb 28. My roomies, Evie and Fraser painting a masterpiece in the late afternoon heat.
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Sunsets, kids and real estate.
227/365: Feb 15 2009. We visited some friends who live at Newell Beach, just north of Mossman, for lunch and a stroll on the beach. Evie, my god daughter & niece, got a little tired on the way back. We all got sunburnt. What is summer without some accidental sunburn. My first in about a year. These beaches are so beautiful here – long, empty and full of cool shells, coral pieces and driftwood to check out. Sadly because of the rain and flooding the ocean is all stirred up with mud from the river mouths. Not too pretty. Can’t wait to get out to the reef to swim in some azure water again.
228/365: Feb 16. The sunsets are really quite extraordinary. I stepped off the verandah this afternoon to soak up the surreal pink light, looked up and saw these beautiful colours.
229/365: Feb 17. I photographed some apartments at this horribly white resort for my brothers business today (Port Douglas Real Estate), amongst a bunch of other properties. I get to satisfy all my voyeuristic tendencies with this job – we go into houses and apartments and photograph them, often while they are out at work (all pre-arranged, of course). Some places are just lovely.
230/365: Feb 18. My bro and I went up to the lovely rolling hills of Julatten to photograph some gorgeous properties, and on one of them I got chatting to these friendly horses.
231/365: Feb 19. The family attended a kind of long-time-no-see party for an old friend at the Central Hotel today. I got kinda bored – didn’t know many people, too many kids running around and my nephew Fraser was playing King Sullen Sulker so I took myself off for a walk – so glad I did, the sunset off Anzac park was spectacular. I had had a couple of beers and well, the emotion of the moment really caught me. I sat on the grass and looked out at the beautiful Cape Tribulation and all the jungle-covered mountains and the still ocean and I think it really hit me. I’m not in Japan anymore.
232/365: Feb 20. More real estate photography. This one up at Cape Kimberley, just over the Daintree River crossing. This place was amazing. Fully self-sufficent in terms of water and power – a roof full of solar panels, 2 wind turbines, a creek and a private water bore. They don’t even own house keys. Fruit trees, horses, a big pool….. oh, if I had the money….. . This was the verandah/living room. On the way there, we crossed over the Daintree River where a local 5 year old boy was taken by a croc just the week before. He was the son of a local tour operator. The whole community has been rocked by this, and it seems everyone knows someone who knows the family who lost the boy. His older brother was there when it happened and had to be treated for shock. God, I can’t imagine how that is going to scar him. The family have tons of local support, and they are being well looked after. Not that that will bring him back or erase the experience from his brothers memory banks.
233/365: Feb 21. Evie loves the pool in the backyard. We take turns swimming laps. It takes me one stroke, and her about 10 wild paddles. Hilarious.
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New Beginnings
220/365: Feb 8 2009. My nephew Darcy celebrated his 13th birthday today. This symbolic day is the reason I chose to fly back this weekend. Lots of silly showing off and excited kids and a big fancy breakfast out on the front verandah with his grandparents and the family. Lovely.
221/365: Feb 9 2009. While over 200 people and many thousands of cute furry animals (don’t get me started, I’ll start getting weepy) were burned to death in the most horrific natural disaster to hit Australia ever, the region where I am was copping its annual wet season. A lot of the places down south a little, and out west in the gulf country, were seriously flooded. Highways were cut and most Cairns/Port Douglas supermarkets sold out of fresh produce (fortunately my supply of banana’s wasn’t threatened). Hundreds of homes were seriously flooded, and some 100 000 head of cattle died as floods headed inland. Farmers 80 km’s inland had to shut all the gates (in chest deep water) to keep out the circling crocodiles. Yes, I sh*t you not. This is one CRAAAAZY country. Sadly the bushfires kept the news of the serious nature of these floods out of the news (it is being called “the most under-reported natural disaster in the Gulf country’s history”) , and while the whole world donated generously to the fire survivors (even the flood affected), the flood victims had to staunchly soldier on with very little public and government support. Such a tragedy when 2 natural disasters happen in the same country at the same time.
222/365: Feb 10 2009. This week was all about impressions, colours, shapes, smells. Even goldie the goldfish in her large ceramic outdoor Thai pot, encrusted with moss, took on a fascinating aura.
223/365: Feb 11 2009. Just before I arrived, a carton of white wine was purchased on special to celebrate my return. We drank a bottle or 2 every day. And ate the most exquisite dips and crackers. Ah, the food. The wine. Summer, I love theeeeeee.
224/365: Feb 12 2009. Sorry, bear with me as I indulge in my fascination/love/obsession for tropical shapes, textures, etc. Even palm fronds are looking exotic to me at the moment. I’m sure this will pass, but for now, I’m soaking it up and indulging my lens in the most arbitrary of subjects.
225/365: Feb 13 2009. The backyard. Love the little people’s pool.
226/365: Feb 14 2009. A friend of my brother’s – well, ok, ok, the niece of one of my brother’s best friends celebrated her (month-long) 21st this evening, with a most civilised 3 course home cooked feast on the back deck at their home in town. The table loved amazing, all sprinkled with little red hearts which ended up all over all of us for days to come.
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The Long Sayonara Part 4
212/365: Feb 1 2009. Eiko, Taizo, Pancho. My Japanese family / landlords / upstairs neighbours took Greg and I out for a fancy meal at a local restaurant. I swapped the Olympus for a far superior Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150. This was one of the first pic’s from that camera. I was so excited, they all thought I was kinda nuts. I gave them a framed print of one of my own pictures from the Dr Sketchy’s exhibition. I hope they like it, I gave them what I thought was one of the tamer prints.
214/365: Feb 2 2009. My mum Helsie would have loved this Helsie, they are soooo alike. Love this girl. We had lunch at Pizza Junction in Harajuku then went makeup shopping. I bought some more pink eye shadow. Thanks baby! She’s off to live and love in Germany in a few months, leaving Tokyo after some 15 years. I know she’s doing the right thing, and am delighted that she is making that leap of faith, to follow that fella halfway around the world.
215/365: Feb 3 2009. Minimum, Wakako, Ono-san, me and Tamaki. Some of my Starbucks family. We hit one of the private rooms at Iseya, Kichijoji’s *awesomest* cheap beer and yakitori joint where we got all teary and did the gift giving/too many photos thing. Then I went home to keep on packing/cleaning.
216/365: Feb 4 2009. Oh my. Such a fun night. Cherry Typhoon, Paulie (aka Dj Evil Penguin) and I spent the afternoon/evening doing a tour of Asakusa, finishing up at a pretty legendary sake bar with Magnus, my Dr Sketchy’s replacement and talented photographer.
217/365: Feb 5 2009. That last day/night in Japan was frikken frenetic to put it mildly. After running around like a maniac all day, Kat, Darin, Jake, Christian, Yuiko and I met up for an early dinner. Greg, the Canadian microbiologist roomie turned up after work. I said my “see ya’s” to the Australia-bound gaijins (knowing that we’ll be seeing each other in Australia in a few months) then hit my favourite haunt, Peppermint Cafe, (with Greg) to meet up with the J-crew for a night of more gift-giving, too many photos, quite a few tears, a speech and a slow clap. In this picture: Ami-chan, Lisa, me, Mikorin, Sachika.
218/365: Feb 6 2009. Sayonara Japan. I met up with the local crew at the park Starbucks for a last coffee, then a small group made their way with me to the airport bus stop in Kichijoji where they waved me off. Such a lovely send off. I sat on the bus as it drove out of Kichijoji and tried to comprehend that the moment had finally come. I loved living there, in Kichijoji. Such a great community.
Christian came to the airport to drink beers with me. Lucky since my plane was delayed 2 hours. Old friend Hide – on his way to SF for a holiday – met up with us at the airport for half an hour too. He’s such a gorgeous man. Anyways, this is the last photo I took in Japan. Quite fitting that it is yet another picture of me and Christian drinking beer. Christian, you are such a wonderful friend. I love you! You helped make my time in Tokyo so much more fulfilling, so much more drunken and way less lonely than it could have been…… Such a solid friend, always there when you are needed. Thank you.
219/265: Feb 7 2009. Hello Australia.
My new room. My new neighbour. My new life. Woohoooooo.
I’m really sorry that the past few months worth of blog posts have been so clearly rushed and, quite frankly, duller than dishwater. It’s been quite a struggle to keep blogging during this period of transition but I was bloody determined to keep it up, just to have at least a part record of my last year in Japan. I’m also really sorry that the comments have been broken apparently since I did the upgrade to MT 4.23 back in early December, as I know that people wanted to chime in and say their piece during this time – thanks to you folks who emailed me directly. Your continued interest in frangipani.info constantly surprises and motivates me, so thanks for sticking on in there. Still trying to work out why the comments aren’t working, but I want to get them working again asap – it’s way too quite around here without them.
Love youz.
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The Long Sayonara Part 3
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205/365: Jan 25 2009. Gertrude found a new home at the UAE Embassy, as the ambassador’s daughter’s new pet. We spent the day just hanging out and whispering sweet nothings into each others ears. Their driver came to pick her up. As he got back into the car, he told me he had a turtle of his own. When I asked him to please check in on her sometimes, to make sure that she’s OK – he smiled reassuringly, like a grade one teacher does to new parents, and then I felt really silly.
206/365: Jan 26. Keiko, Rumiko, me, Lisa and Hiroko. All of them awesome people. We worked together at the high school for 4 years. Gonna miss these special people. This pic was taken at la Befana, the best pizza joint in Kichijoji, at our sayonara dinner…..
207/365: Jan 27. Misaki, me, Naomi (7 months preggars), Mai, Nana, Yoko, my Mint family. Hairdressers, students, friends. They found this great organic vegetarian cafe in Naka-Meguro for our dinner, oh dear god the food was to die for. The organic wine was pretty fine too…..
208/365: Jan 28. Cherry, Ladyelle and me at my last Dr Sketchy’s Tokyo. These f**king awesome ladies kick serious ass in sooo many ways, I will miss them so. Just noticed that pretty much every photo this week features ass-kicking women. I like that.
209/365: Jan 29: I met with Erochika Bamboo and Ms cabaretta for a photo shoot in the upper levels of Shibuya’s Trump Room. What an amazing venue. And what amazing models. You will also be seeing more of these photos later too. We have a secret plan for world domination. Well, OK, to raise the profile of Tokyo’s burlesque performers. But I’ll have more deets on that at a later date….. it’s all still quite hush-hush…..
210/365: Jan 30. I did a shoot with TRACE at my fave Kichijoji bar, Mishima…. then I went home and did another shoot for Tiffany and her hubby, then kept on packing.
211/365: Jan 31. Bought a crappy Olympus point and shoot camera for my “official” sayonara party, and promptly returned it the next day – you may understand why by looking at he above picture. What a piece of crap. But the photo is still a treasure – it was taken as we left the karaoke bar and made our way to Peppermint Cafe for dinner. Sarah, me, Kat & Jake, Christian, Darin, then in the front Helen, Yuiko and Yuta. Such an awesome night. I’ll be putting up a ton of pic’s at facebook soon – lot’s of skanky drunken sayonara party shots from the 3 week period before I flew out…
Ah Tokyo. I love ya, I miss ya, but I never want to live with ya again.
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The Long Sayonara part 2
198/365: Jan 18 2009. The movie Australia was being released around the time of my departure, I felt it quite fitting really. Publicity everywhere…. this one: the back of the front passengers seat of a taxi.
199/365: Jan 19 2009. The fabulous Mz Cherry Typhoon and I met for a photo shoot in Asakusa. So many wonderful photos, you will be seeing more from this one, trust me.
200/365: Jan 20 2009. For the last 4 or so years I’ve been deeply conflicted about the group of people in this photo. You see, they are one of my English classes. They are one of my most fun English classes. We used to go for drinks/meals together on occasion…. Our lessons are boisterous and entertaining. But…. they were held once or twice a month on SATURDAY EVENINGS from 7:40 to 9:10 in Higashi Koganei. Oh, the torture of missing out on nights out with friends, or seeing some cool band playing somewhere…. I have wanted to QUIT this class sooooo many times. But I just couldn’t. They are way too much fun. This was our sayonara dinner.
201/365: Jan 21. Dinner at Casa-Jon in Naka Meguro with my old colleague Jon and his new girl-friend Tomoko, the lovely Guy and Ben, and Ben’s GF. Hilarious. Sayonara baby!
202/365: Jan 22. My India travel buddy, Ryosuke (Suzan) came up to Kichijoji to have dinner with me. We drank lots of nihonshu at one of the bars in harmonica yokocho after a delicious Thai dinner. Lovely.
203/365: Jan 23: The fantabulous MissSin had a birthday party at her fave bar down in Tsunashima, Blue Corn. She can play the spoons like a champ, as can Shingo. Their friend with the pussycat-spoon ears stays young by staying wet. Don’t ask…..
204/365: Jan 24. My friend Nathan plays in a very good band, Trace – they had a gig at Super Deluxe and I came along to try to catch some of their magic with my camera. If you get a chance to see them play, you should grab it.
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Some photo shoots and the beginning of the long farewell…
192/365: Jan 12 2009. Today was a public holiday for “coming of age” day – lot’s f pretty little 20 years olds tottering around in their gorgeous long sleeved kimono’s and white faux furs. My friend/student Keiko and I had an adventure at Odawara Castle, then on to Yumoto in Hakone to visit Tenzan Onsen. Ate some great food, drank amezake and blissed out in the rotenburo. AH, life is good. This photo was taken in the grounds of Odawara Castle, where I got really sad about the poor elephant kept in a tiny cement enclosure there.
193/365: Jan 13 2009. I took a break from my private English lessons and packing to drop into Guy Perryman’s little studio in Harajuku to take some photos for him for the new year. His assisant these days (well, one of them), is our very own Masao from Tokyomade. It was a fun afternoon, and after the shoot Masao and I met up with Deanne (very surprised to see me) after she finished a photo shoot of her own and we went for coffee at the stupidly overpriced and poorly serviced Fujimama’s. Why it is such a mecca for the expat community is beyond me.
194/365: Jan 14 2009. Things are trickling out of my house a little every day. Today my friend Nathan and his roomie came by to take my dryer away. They live in Asagaya, and planned to just walk the dryer home via the train. As they left my house, shuffling along on either side of the dryer, they were discussing options, and agreed that whatever happened, it would certainly be an adventure. Ah, oldskool. That’s the way to do it.
195/365: Jan 15 2009. I did a photo shoot for Sarah at her place, with Jeanette Emery (Style Smart Sensei) as stylist and makeup artist. It was a lot of fun and I got to try out pink eye shadow and decided I like it and am gonna buy some and wear it everyday from now on. Watch out people! Image change.
196/365: Jan 16 2009. I wore pink eye shadow to Mint, my beloved hair salon for our last hair appointment together. Misaki and I have been teacher/student, hairdresser/client for 5 years now. I have taught pretty much all her staff English at various times. They tell me I am part of the Mint Family. We have a sayonara party scheduled in 2 weeks. That one is going to be SAD. They have also booked me to come in and act as a makeup model for them as they practice 1960′s style makeup since they don’t get a chance to practice makeup on foreign models (we have such different eyes and skin) – that’s in my last week in Tokyo, in Feb, when I am officially on holidays and all my things will be already on their way to Australia.
197/365: Jan 17 2009. Hiroko and I taught together at the high school. We caught up over a Nepalese dinner in Kichijoji for a few hours. The school English Department are planning a sayonara dinner for me next week even though I haven’t worked there for a year. Aren’t they sweeeeeeet. Can’t wait to see them all again, it’s been a while.
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2 simultaneous exhibitions, some fine bling and some pretty winter deadness.
185/365: Jan 5 2009. Everywhere in this city, if you look closely, you will see little signs indicative of the national obsession the Japanese have with cats. There are little shelters constructed for the strays in nooks and crannies everywhere. This one sits atop a mains box next to the Lawson at Nishi-Ogikubo Station. The cat who lives there was heavily pregnant last time I saw here, before Christmas. I’d say she’s had them now – I wasn’t game to get too close and cause any stress…..
186/365: Jan 6 2009. Today I opened one of the 2 exhibitions I’m hanging this month (both quite by accident!) – this one is at Mikorins Bar in Kichijoji, and features the long-lost canvas prints that finally arrived recently. They are all the same pictures that you saw at the Dr Sketchy’s exhibition party back in November, only this time on canvas. I think they look beautiful. Please go check them out and – better still – buy some if you feel so inclined….
Today was also Kat’s birthday, and her little bro flew in from London especially. We met up for dinner then Darin took Jake home and Kat partied-on on her first big night out since she got pregnant with Jake. Awesome fun. Happy Birthday Kat!
187/365: Jan 7 2009. Tonight the Dr Sketchy exhibition was re-featured, this time at The Pink Cow. It also happened to be Deanne’s birthday and was quite a night. Lovely. You can see my pic’s there for the month also.
188/365: Jan 8 2009. My student Haru-chan bling-ed up her nintendo DS with pink sequins. And then she embossed my new moleskin diary with gold embossing sand. Looks lush.
189/365: Jan 9 2009. Every so often I take a different route into Kichijoji. I should do it more often as it often affords lovely unexpected pleasures such as this view.
190/365: Jan 10 2009. The trees are dead. The afternoon sun is golden. The days are gorgeous, the nights freezing. It’s been a lovely winter so far.
191/365: Jan 11 2009. More dead nature. I’m obsessed with it, making the most of a season I’m not likely to experience again for a long time.
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New Years Eve and a trip to Chichibu….
178/365: Dec 29 2008. Look at those leaves, just gorgeous. I love seasons.
179/365: Dec 30 2008. Sigsy and Kei moved into a new apartment in Shin-Nakano and decided on an inpromptu house-warming with some of their new (kinda local) “neighbours” (April & Toshi & the kids, Tracey, Jeannette and me). I love this snap – look as Sasuke (the screaming kid!), he and his bro were so excited that the little one spewed all over the new floor just as I made my departure…. (good timing, I reckon)
180/365: Dec 31 2008. I did a photo shoot for Lara and Eric and their 3 gorgeous kids. The 2 littlies, both girls, dressed up in the finest ballet ensembles and charmed the socks off me. Gorgeous.
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181/365: Jan 1 2009. This New Years Eve was one of the loveliest ones I’ve had in years. Christian, Yuiko, Tyler, Mihoko and I had dinner at Peppermin Cafe then wandered over to Hachiman Temple to take part i hatsumode, and ringing the bells….. then we checked out Benten SHrine in the park, before heading back to Peppa for their all night party. You can see more pictures from NYE at the facebook album.
In the afternoon I met up with my friend Lisa and we took off to her parents holiday house in Chichibu, Saitama, for Oshogatsu. The family dinner that night was nothing short of a magnificent feast and everyone lolled around on the floor under the kotatsu for a long time.
182/365: Jan 2 2009. Lisa’s folks got their taxi-driving friend to take us all on a sightseeing tour of the area. It was a fantastic treat to check out some of Chichibu’s finest sights and I had a hard time picking my “photo a day” photo. I had no idea that anywhere in Saitama was so beautiful. Ignorant me.
183/365: Jan 3 2009. Lisa’s mum is one of 7 kids, most of them still live in the area around Chichibu. We went for a morning walk and dropped in on her older sisters family and borrowed their grandkids for our walk. Supercool. This is their backyard. Lisa and I came back to Tokyo that evening, feeling significantly refreshed and content to start the new year.
184/365: Jan 4 2009. And my new years adventrue: preparing for an inter-continental move. It’s excruciating, sorting through piles of memorabilia and whatnot, trying to decide what will be joining me in my new home.
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Almost Christmas….
165/365: Dec 16th. Packing packing packing. Moving across continents is daunting, to put it mildly. I am having a sayonara sale. Also, if you want to rent my house once I’m gone, you should get in touch with Tokyo Housing Bureau.
166/365: Dc 17th. The Dr Sketchy Bonenkai (year end party) was held in Asakusa. It was a hoot. This is our fearless leader, Lady Elle. Isn’t she gorgeous! You can see more pic’s from that night, and the Presentific party HERE.
167/365: Dec 18th. More packing. I noticed the light falling on my plastic flowers in the genkan was really pretty, despite the gloomy grey outside…..
168/365: Dec 19th. I did a shoot with the gorgeous jazz singer Tiffany Toriumi. This woman has the most beautiful smile I have ever photographed! We had a great time, and I even got her to song a couple of songs for me accapella. Ohhhhh, her voice is to die for.
169/365: Dec 20th. This is the hilarious woman who works at my fruit & veggie shop. I asked if I could take her photo, and she got very shy. She giggled, and wouldn’t look at me for ages then she finally looked up and cracked up. Bang. Gotcha.
170/365: Jake loves dogs. And they seem to love him back. Adorable!
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A wee surprise party and lot’s of pretty autumnness
157/365: Dec 8 2008: Wandering around the city, you can stumble on some gorgeous, unexpected scenes. This one is in Shinjuku – an old red brick wall with a round portal facing a children’s playground.
158/365: Dec 9. Guess who got a new pair of slippers?
159/365: Dec 10. After work, met up with Helen for dinner at La Boheme in Shibuya. Afterwards we wandered around LOFT where I spied these santa’s sitting all in a row. Lovely.
160/365: Dec 11: My students Kumi & Sari emailed me before their lessons to ask if I’d be interested in going to Kumi’s house for dinner. They have been friends since school, and spend a lot of their time together. Sari arranged to meet me at the station, and we walked together to Kumi’s family home. All diligent plans for a lesson fell to the wayside as Kumi’s mum and I got stuck into the nihonshu and they pulled out a gorgeous 3 course meal including a surprise birthday cake and presents. A precious night indeed.
161/365: Dec 12. A quiet day, no lessons. Went for a walk in the park. The colours are magical.
162/365: Dec 13. I walked along the Futamagawa canal from Kichijoji to Mitakadai and was delighted by the sight of dozens of pink and red flower bushes in full bloom.
163/365: Dec 14. Guy Perryman put on a party called “Presentific” at the Mado Lounge, on the 52nd floor of Roppongi Hills. A g r e a t night! Danced most of the night to the sublime sounds of DJ Bambi and Guy Perryman in the small room (I frikken hate house music [all that was being played in the big room] but these 2 DJ’s were playing a brilliantly eclectic collection of old remixes. HOT HOT HOT!) All the burlesque Sketchy gals were there, performing – this is the spectacular Erochika Bamboo strutting her stuff. Caught the first train home with the other stragglers the next morning, in the rain.
164/365: Dec 15. OK, I cheated on this day as I slept through most of it. In fact, I think it rained the whole day… This photo is one of my file photos taken recently…. (I know, I know, I’ll go to hell for falsifying my 365 days project…)
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Another quiet-ish week.
150/365: Dec 1 2008. Dave Gutteridge is a comedian at the Tokyo Comedy Club. We met through the Dr Sketchy’s nights and I was honoured when he asked me to do his headshots for the book he’s writing, and for his regular publicity photographs. He came over and we spent a few hours trying a bunch of different things (I used a snoot for the first time – those Strobist tutorials are finally paying off!) and got some great photographs. A fun shoot with a nice guy.
After we finished I made the mad dash into Yurakucho to meet my friend Alfie and head to the Tokyo Foreign Correspondents Club for the opening party of their latest photo exhibition, by the photographers collective Sha-do. Had an excellent night, hung out and drank beer with some amazing photographers and some generally inspirational people doing generally inspirational things. On my way home, on the nice deserted Monday night Chuo, I had to wonder if I’m making the right decision, leaving Tokyo. Anyway, I discussed a photo project I’ve started with some of the people from the Press Club and they are interested in showing the resulting exhibition there in May. Very cool. Hope I can make it happen.
151/365: Dec 2 2008. I love soba. I really really love soba. I’m really really gonna miss soba when I go. Almost feeling human again after more than a week of sickness. The shocking night cough is keeping me awake but I’m over the worst of it.
152/365: Dec 3. Gloomy weather. But there is always something to make a gal chuckle. This car is parked around the corner from my house, outside some new, very expensive apartments.
153/365: Dec 4 2008. Lovely Lisa and I taught together as team-teachers for 2 years, and we still hang out sometimes. I photographed her wedding back in August. Today we ran into each other, and miraculously, we both had time for a coffee and a chat. It was great to hang out and catch up. So many people I’ll miss when I go.
154/365: Dec 5 2008. Cherry Typhoon invited me along to a little cabaret/vaudeville show she was performing (starring) in at the Puk Pupa Teatro in Shinjuku. I hung out with her backstage – which actually was 3 floors under ground, underneath the stage. See the spiral staircase in the background? That is how the performers get up to the stage. Rickety dinky fabulous. The theatre itself is quite famous as a puppet theatre – the building has been standing for 80 years, and the Puk Group has been there for 35 years or so. The old fella who runs the place struck up a lively conversation with me after the show, drowned me in flyers and info about the place. He is utterly passionate about puppetry and marionettes.
155/365: Dec 6 2008. I bought a wireless strobe transmitter and extra strobe light and wanted to practice with it ahead of an important shoot, so I asked my ever-patient roomie, Greg the micro-biologist/geneticist to sit on a stool in front of my lights while I played around. He brought his book in and looked up when required. He considers himself something of a comedian. Perhaps you can see a glimpse of his deadpan humour in this pic?
156/365: Dec 7 2008. I spent most of the day at Legato’s, on the 18th floor of a Dogenzaka (Shibuya) building, shooting a room full of kids under the age of 12 dancing and hanging with Santa at the Baby Loves Disco Christmas Party. By sunset things had become pretty quiet (little kiddlies need to crash and burn after a mad day of screaming around a dance floor) and I had some downtime watching the sun go down over the city and Mt Fuji (that’s her right in the centre of the photo, on the horizon). Lovely. The picture does it NO JUSTICE at all.
Afterwards I went to a hotel in Yotsuya to hang out with Christians mum, grandpa and a bunch of his family friends visiting from Brisbane, as well as Yuiko’s mum and dad. A fun, rowdy night. It was bloody lovely to be sitting inside an insulated apartment. When we walked back to the station the cold was quite breathtaking.
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Mellow yellow
133/365: Nov 24. You know how your body is. It can take only so much. And then, when you are over that essential hump – that event/project closure/exam… whatever…. bang. It gives up. And you go down with nary a whimper. I’m sick. Stayed in bed all day, watched a lot of TV – The Wire, The Medium, 4400….. Dosed up on mandarins, and ascorbic acid.
134/365: Nov 25 2008. I crawled out of bed to teach a lesson. Sayaka. We’ve been doing lessons for 4 years now. We’ve come such a long way…..(this is her back in Oct 2004) – she’s a pro model and dancer these days.
135/365: Nov 26 2008. Dr Sketchy’s Tokyo November – Erochica Bamboo. Fabulous fun as always, and even though i was sick, I couldn’t miss the chance to photograph this supremely gracious, fun and sexy class act. Erochica is a veteran of the burlesque scene, she’s a classy lady and I am a HUGE fan.
146/365. Nov 27 2008. Started out the day doing some lessons, but after doing 2, I knew there was no way I could continue so cancelled my remaining classes and limped home to bed where I monitored my 38 degree temperature and drank about 4 litres of water.
147/365: Nov 28, 2008. A special day for me. Forced myself out of bed and rugged up well and met Kat and Jakey for dinner at 5, before heading out to Christian & Tylers gig at Nanahari in Kayabacho. This picture was taken at Tokyo station by Ms Sigsy in the last half hour of my 41st birthday. A mellower birthday I have never had, not a drop of booze passed my lips.
148/365: Nov 29 2008. Birthday fun continued. This pic was taken about an hour after the one above, I guess it sits in that blurry area where it could be dated either way – one can date it the 29th since technically it was, but I hadn’t yet made it to bed from the 28th….
This is my darlin’ friend Minako – she opened her bar, Mikorin, the same day as my 39th birthday so we share birthdays and I am forever bound to that bar. My body was screaming to just go home but I couldn’t *not* go. Oligation is the enemy of good health, ha! Jane and I dropped in to Mikorins to help her celebrate the bars second birthday. Made an appearance, posed for photos, made my farewells and wandered feebly home. Got home and had a coughing fit to wake the dead and have self-diagnosed a throat infection. It’ll pass soon enough. I plan to stay home all weekend, take good gentle care of myself. Catch up on all those personal chores like budgeting, and planning an exit strategy for the over-whelming task of moving to another country.
149/365: Nov 30 2008. A superb blue sky day. A mellow yellow kind of recovery Sunday. Met up with Kat down at the park for a stroll. Can’t believe how much Jake Taiga is walking these days. Came home, watched The Kite Runner and a whole lot of crappy downloaded TV and vowed that this coming week I would seriously curtail the whole TV binge I’ve been on this past week.
Looking forward to the week to come.
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Exhibition Party Week
126/365: Nov 17 2008. Such a gorgeous day! Autumn days here can be startlingly magnificent – clear, crisp blue skies and warm sunshine. Every house has their washing and futons hanging outside.
127/365: Nov 18 2008. Busy teaching day. I usually try to walk into Kichijoji through the park for my morning classes, so I can catch the gorgeous light thrown on the trees by the waters reflections. Magical.
128/365: Nov 19 2008. I met up with Guy Perryman, local radio celeb and all-round nice fella. He did an interview with me for his online radio show, That Guy In Tokyo, to help promote my exhibition and the Dr Sketchy’s Exhibition party.
129/365: Nov 20 2008. This is the UK band Brigade. Nice guys. I just noticed that they are using this pic as their new myspace profile pic. Yay. They’ve been touring Japan with the support of the UK Embassy and I met up with them while photographing a networking event in Shibuya. The Troubadours were there too, and I took pictures of them as well. But the Brigade fellas were a much nicer, down to earth bunch of people. It was hella smoky that night, I hate that Japan still hasn’t banned smoking in restaurants and bars.
130/365: Nov 21 2008. Prepping for my exhibition tomorrow night. Had ordered canvas prints from the US but they never arrived, so I ended up going to my local Yodabashi and doing my prints there. They did come up well but not as gorgeous as the canvas prints would have been.
131/365: Nov 22. Another beautiful day. But actually, I am cheating here, I took this pic a few days ago (it was an equally gorgeous day), coz I didn’t actually take a single photo all day. Why? ……. because it was…..
DR SKETCHYS EXHIBITION PARTY DAY!
Such a great party!! Well-worth all our hard work (and so much frikken work, I tell you!) in terms of quality and fun. We only sold one art piece all night though, and didn’t quite get the numbers were were hoping for. But never mind, it was so much fun. Wish I could stick around and help out with the next one next year….. You can see some pic’s here and here (there are plenty more on facebook too). Oh and wow – I just found that Erochica Bamboo has a flickr page! Awesome! She is soooo amazing!
132/365: Nov 23. After 3 hours sleep, I headed out to Seikei University for the annual Uni festival. A bunch of my old high school students (now studying at Uni) are in the dance club and invited me to their performance. If there is one thing young Japanese can do well, it’s dance. They are all into it. Big group hip-hop/modern dance shows. A lot of fun, and my kids did me proud.
I couldn’t stay long as I had signed up for my first ever hoop class with Deanne. 2 hours of occasionally exasperating fun as I learned the cowgirl, orbiting, hand hooping and flunked the corkscrew over and over again. Check out this hilarious Tokyo Hoop Stars video. Anyway, the class was a lot of fun and I came away feeling enthusiastic about practising my new moves in the yard.
Then… I met up with Tracey & Ashley back at my place and we did a photo shoot to celebrate their engagement. I’m pretty happy with the results, hope they are too…. I do love the upside-down-cheek-to-cheek pose (and have been know to do it before, I know…) , but they came up with this one, this time and it looks so pretty I had to share.
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A smutty scrabble champion and so much more….
119/365: Nov 10 2008. This was a particularly reflective week. Spend a lot of time wandering around the park, taking photos and being alone (in amongst as little-as-possible event planning, English teaching and photography work). Today I made the trek into Ebisu to visit my “manniaku hair-make” hairdresser, Misaki. Seriously the grey thing is just getting out of hand and I’m running out of the energy required to dye your hair every 5 weeks. One day soon I’m just gonna let it go and bust out the grey in all its glory.
120/365: Nov 11 2008. I LOVE these flowers (no idea what they are called), they only bloom for a few weeks in autumn and this lovely old fella down near the park set his fine collection outside his gate for all to enjoy. He came out while I was photographing them, proud as punch and we had a neighbourly conversation about the weather and the pretty flowers.
121/365: Nov 12 2008. Dear Priscilla, the lucky lady who worked my job as the booker/manager at The Zoo after I moved on, paid me a visit in Kichijoji today. We had lunch, wandered around in the park a bit and talked long. Fabulous day!
122/365: Nov 13 2008. The road less travelled? What’s next for me, now I’ve decided to pick up my life and move on. Exciting, terrifying.
123/365: Nov 14 2008. These power towers carve a swathe through my neighbourhood and the locals hang their washing and futons out on their bases. Just one of the many reasons I have to leave Tokyo. People keep asking me if something happened to make me want to leave, one defining thing. There is not one defining thing, there are 1000 defining things. This dense suburbia is one of them.
124/365: Nov 15 2008. You gotta get to the park early to catch it looking as empty as this. A rare sight, indeed.
125/365: Nov 16 2008. Helen and I had long-planned a tree-hugging day for today – somewhere out in Chichibu, but it pissed down all day so we settled on an afternoon/evening of scrabble, crafts and movies at my place. Sarah came along too. These two lovely ladies are wickedly funny, we played scrabble with 2 scoreboards – one for regular words, one for smutty words. Sarah won smutty scrabble by a long shot. We watched Lars and The Real Girl, if you haven’t seen it yet, put it on your must-see list! Well written, made, played.
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The week of Yes We Can!
112/365: Nov 3 2008. Deanne and Masao, the awesome duo who run Tokyomade, have been putting on a quarterly art market, Fragment for the past year. It’s been steadily growing and today’s event was held at the far more spacious venue Super Deluxe, in Roppongi. It typically features arts and crafts stalls, live painting and DJ’s. Always an inspirational hoot and well worth your support.
113/365: Nov 4 2008. Eizo Biz Nite. Event days are always a stressy scramble and I never remember to pick up my camera till well on my way home. This is the lovely little street that leads from Nishi-Ogikubo Station to my place well after midnight.
114/365: Nov 5 2008. I spent the morning at Lara’s place, helping her photograph her beautiful pottery. She made me a lovely lunch and we heard the news together that Obama had won via a text message. A great day indeed. Later on I had a long meeting in Aoyama, and afterwards had a great conversation with my buddy Leila about Obama, and being black in America. A remarkably fresh, cool and unique angle on that big issue, one that opened my eyes. I love that living in a major international city gives me so many opportunities to be given insights into so many different cultures.
115/365: Nov 6 2008. Lots of teaching today. This is sweet, sweet Sari. She is getting married soon to a guy from her work. They started dating 5 months ago so it’s a kinda whirlwind romance…..
116/365: Nov 7 2008. The TELL (Tokyo English Lifeline) Connoisseurs’ Charity Auction was on today, and yours truly played the part of photographer. This year the event was held at the Canadian Embassy, and was a huge success in terms of fundraising for this important NPO. My bestest buddy was the event organiser, and he is an amazing event planner so it was always going to a huge success despite his qualms about the recent economic climate.
117/365: Nov 8 2008. Spent the day watching news videos and Obama’s speeches again. So very happy, so very relieved.
118/365: Nov 9 2008. A lazy Sunday – drank lots of coffee, read some Vanity Fair magazines recently donated to me by Helen and headed in to the Clothes Swap at the Pink Cow for the afternoon with Yuiko, Kat and Sigsy. Stared clearing out the cupboards…
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A bit of this, a bit of that.
105/365: Oct 27. I often find myself in the local co-op on Mondays. It’s a very Japanese grocery store, they stock truckloads of weird little things I’ve never seen anywhere else. I will miss their tofu section – look at it would you! 4 shelves of it, with 20 different variations!
106/365: Oct 28. I woke up in the Odawara Fuji-Xerox training centre, in a business hotel-like room. Spent the day pretending to be a foreign Fuji-Xerox staff member on a bunch of international communication exercises. Got paid quite well. Then we got to take the romance car back into Shinjuku at the end of the day. UK Sound was on that night, so like the dutiful Tiger staff member I am, I trundled down to the Shibuya Hobgoblin to attend the event and support DJ James & Kazumi in their work. Guy Perryman was DJ’ing, he played some great old tracks from my/his youth including Echo & The Bunnymen’s Spare us the Cutter. Almost made me cry with nostalgia. I quite enjoy this event – realised I really miss classic “pub” culture.
107/365: Oct 29. Spent the day teaching then caught up with Jane who wanted to show me the hotel photographer’s studio portraits from the wedding I photographed a few weeks back. I was really impressed by the photo presentation – lovely folders and paper. We sat in Mishima over a beer, and waited for Kota to show up. I taught Kota for 3 years when he was in high school, and is by far the most awesome kid I ever taught there. Polite, intelligent, independent and fun. He spent the summer in Portugal (he saved up for it by working part time jobs through his first year of uni) and had the time of his life. He raced through the 200+ pictures still in his camera while Jane and I ooh-ed and aah-ed at the beautiful Portuguese summer. It was odd to drink beer with one of my ex-high school students. We plan to meet again in January with a bunch of the other students from his year, and have dinner together. He lives not far from me so we caught the train back together, and I took some pic’s of him on the train much to his amusement.
108/365: Oct 30. Rushing to my 4th lesson of the day, I dropped into the konbeni to grab an onegiri. Standing at the onegiri shelves was my friend and inspiration Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, with his wife Yuko and gorgeous little girl Hikari. He just got back from an amazing 2 month shoot with Greenpeace through Papua New Guinea and I’d been meaning to drop him a line to get together so it was a nice bit of synchronicity. We arranged to meet up after my lessons were done. Hung out in the park and chatted and played.
109/365: Oct 31. Games halls in Tokyo, and all Japan, are massively popular. They include purikura booths, and a staggering array of computer games. This shooting game is right at the front of the many games halls in Shinjuku and made for a cool pic.
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110/365: Nov 1 2008. I was invited by a friend to attend a lecture by Michael Yamashita, the National Geographic photographer. I got to speak with him before the lecture and he told my friend Charles Glover (a great photographer!) and me that he thinks photography and magazines – as we know them today – are dying. Actually, I don’t think they are dying at all. I think they are evolving and that it’s an exciting time to be a part of photography. His lecture was based on the Marco Polo project he did with National Geographic – an epic sprawling adventure that took took the team through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Read his notes from the field. Inspirational stuff.
111/365: Nov 2 2008. Every year, around this time, private schools have their entrance exams. Mothers in black suits with pearls march their little ones in quaint little suits and hats off to the schools of their dreams to sit for an exam. If they pass, they are integrated into that school from first year through to university, regardless of their grades. Makes for a shockingly lazy bunch of students and I used to despise the “lifers” at the school where I used to teach. They were lazy as hell. Anyway, I live near a girls school and caught these little girls and their mums making their way in to a testing day. Imagine spending 15 years in the same institution, from the age of 6.
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