Pictures, feelings and fictions from my summer trip in Japan.

dimanche 18 décembre 2011

Parks and gardens in Tokyo

HAMA RIKYU (浜離宮)








YOYOGI (代々木)
 




I use to sit here on the wet summer days and let the drizzle caress my skin. Never on sunny days: too many people, too many glances. On rainy grey days, the park is deserted. Sensations are more intimate then. Solitary.

I sit, don’t  know if it’s allowed. Maybe it’s an artistic and poetic work we shouldn’t touch?

I sit and turn my face toward the sky. I think of some of my dearest friends. 

I sit, and let the rain run on my cheeks, flow in my neck and slip under my shirt.
It’s like regaining my body, after the sun and warmth have damaged it.



Sounds of Yoyogi...



Tiny Garden and Parking in Nakano ((中野)



samedi 3 décembre 2011

People in Streets - part 2



Harajuku - Cats On Fire Street

She could already hear the cats’voices of the street. Tiny cries of young colored kitten, striped, red, yellow and pink and black, excited and jumping little cats. She could avoid the little predators by going to the streets nearby, but only for a while. She should go back and face their little claws, try to escape their callings, slip through the crowded place and finally run away, fast and fast and faster!

Maybe this therapy against agoraphobia was a little bit violent for her. She should talk to her therapist about it…



Rendez-vous

Going slow, walking slow, high on my heels, carefully moving to not disturb my pretty hair. Last time I checked myself in a window, it looked perfectly heaven. Lipstick and bright colors, dark eyes and red on nails, I must be the prettiest today. Will he see my prettiness? 




Umbrellas

Must have of the rainy days, must have of the sunny days! Transparent or flowered, colored with black laces, black plastic handle today, white plastic handle tomorrow, dancing umbrellas in the streets, waltzing umbrellas in the night. Nothing more than a useful accessory but how could you be a Tokyoite without it?



Geek fantasy in black socks

Did they ask their parents to go to this school for its  black and yellow bag? Would it be so trendy...

mardi 22 novembre 2011

People in streets - part 1


Mamoru  was wandering if she would have lunch with him tomorrow. Maybe he would ask her, finally. Maybe he would dare.

 Day after day he had  looked at her, noticing her tastes about makis, onigiris and weeds salad.
 He used to prepare some in his own bento box now.  Every day since she had smiled to him in the elevator. 

 He sighed and waited for the train to pass.


Yellow head and yellow foot, black trousers and confidence, they look ahead, certain of being young and smart, nice and tasty. 


Proud yellow boys of Shibuya.



Orange girls in golden stairs.

Staring at people like cats staring at mice. Cold, calculating, judging little girls with apricot cheekbones. Black eyed and long legged, what will they be in a few years? Elegant students and charming fiancées?  Powerful women and accomplished mothers? 

Will they remember that once, they were crowned Shibuyettes at the 109?

dimanche 6 novembre 2011

Curiosities




When I first read William Gibson « Neuromancer », I thought the capsule-bed were so weird and SF style. The way you could steal electricity from the green light from the ceiling for your computer, and all technologic details were so cool! We didn’t try the capsule-bed in Tokyo, but near the port of Kagoshima, in the South. 
More human, hey? Not a plastic door but a curtain, and a nice and full-equiped kitchen outside the dormitory. I did sleep really well in my small capsule, on my small futon!




 Japanese policeman doing his job. Don’t drive too fast on the highway, unless you want to hear long moralising speech, or seduce a young policeman…



 
Open space, lost space, empty space, strange space. A space between. A time between. Something is over, something to begin. Something was here, something will be. Someday.



Lonely man in a crowded town. I can only imagine things about him, of course. Where he goes, what he does for living, his family, his former life, his old friends, his lost memory… I think this man would have been a hero in Tokyo Godfathers…




“As French people love their car, Japanese people love bicycle. They ride on the pavement, less dangerous ( for the riders). They have what we call girl-bikes, without this horizontal bar which makes man-bikes, in France. They can ride with an open umbrella, like Mary Poppins. When they’re tired of riding bicycle, they park it on the pavement and  forget  it here. It creates some nice piles, quickly rusty. “ Freely translated from “le Kimono Décousu”, by Jean Pinquié. 
So true !



 
Room. Gain room, get room, save room. Be smart.


 
Plastic Derby.


 
Records Shop in a building. You get the lift, like you go home or visit a friend, then you find the small flat shop where two thousands records are waiting for the collector. In any building can be your dream.




Okobo. For maiko- apprentice geisha. The color will change according you’re newer maiko or experienced one, soon to become a geisha – red to yellow.

lundi 31 octobre 2011

Kawaï !

I wonder why everything in Japan - almost everything - shows cute and lovely and funny creatures to figure things. Such things as different as adverts, information signs, posters, or taxis. See by yourself...


Restaurant in Kyoto. Kooot !

If anyone can tell me what this cute dog is showing to these lovely cats?
 
Taxis in Kyoto.

Watch out the yellow kids running in the streets!

No problem if you lose your summer hat on the subway rails, it seems there is an appropriate pincer to grab it back!


Neko!
Usagi!!
These are some of our painted wall friends, on the way back home in Nakano.

Even heart attack safety machine is cute!


Anyone would go back happily to school in a bus like this !
 
 "Great job you did, bear!" said the enthusiastic squirrel...

Follow the shiro neko...

mercredi 26 octobre 2011

I wish I was a gardener!

Where to begin? Tokyo, Yakushima, river, trees, temples, deities, monkeys and waves, so many things to remember and share ! I can't order all these things according to a logical or chronological way. It wouldn't be me! Themes will pop up as my mood will dictate me.

So let's start with shops!

Tiny and lovely flowers shop, which immediately make me wish I had a garden...


Can you imagine that this little shop above, pictured in Kagoshima is closed because it's sunday?! Flowers and plants are out, nicely displayed with small price tickets, and nobody cares about possible thiefs. Because there is no theft at all? This is Japan!


Same kind of flower shop, in Tokyo, with small furnitures and little plants. Just cute !



This is not a café with a welcoming terrace. Nope ! It's a nice hairdressing salon, which proposes you a menu for your haircut, so chic !


Cat street in Tokyo, shopping fever to get !

Kawai creatures everywhere ! And a lot of french names, even when it means nothing at all ( not this one, but some are really weird! ).

And once again, small and decorative plants, along a small way to a tea place... Yes, japanese people have a delightful taste to make more attractive the slightest thing.