OK, I
think I'm back on track. Joined a gym, got my bed
straightened out, have something resembling a normal life going.
I'm even developing a social life. Which is easy enough in a tiny
little burg like Kawaguchi.
The little Mom 'n' Pop gym I joined:
There are even street musicians.
These next guys are a little more successful. They have girls watching.
Naturally, the first band was better.
Even in a place like Kawaguchi, artists get hassled by The Man.
I even found a place that is kind of a regular hangout. It's run by a Nigerian guy named Patrick and his Japanese wife.
(L to R: Me, Patrick, Dan.)
The inside is a bit green. Here's me and Aya, a girl from work.
Aya shows her appreciation for my iPod.
One thing that consistently amazes me is the seemingly endless supply of stuff like this:
Normally I can decipher what they're driving at, but here? Your guess is as good as mine.
You can walk around forever, and still see stuff you had failed to notice the previous 370 times.
A random garage in Kawaguchi:
A giant crab. Someone alert Robyn Hitchcock.
Then...
WHO DOESN'T??!?!!?!?
It's never too early to start drinking.
Perhaps not the BEST name for a beauty parlor...
Speaking of stuff that I failed to notice but was right next to a lot of times, here's Ueno park. Or, should I say, MORE of Ueno park. I took some photos previously, but, unbeknownst to me, I only saw about 30% of the place.
A shot from an elevator overlooking a section of the park (pardon the lines, the glass in the elevator was reinforced with the stuff:)
That's not grass, that's all giant water lilies. There's a lake under there.
You can even rent a goose.
No, I don't know what the deal is with the serrated building in the back.
OK, saving this for last...
I had one of those "the whole trip was worth it just for this" experiences last week. A friend is a clothing designer for modern dancers in the Tokyo area, and she invited me to see a rehearsal (since my days off made it all but impossible to see an actual performance.)
She got into this position slowly, then held it for quite a while. Made my legs hurt just watching it.
Kind of like this:
As above, she slid into this slowly, all the way down to a perfect split. Yow.
One of about 70 consecutive twirls:
All these are screen captures from the DVD.
Guess what that means. Yep, I finished it, almost exactly two weeks later than my original projected deadline. If you haven't gotten your address to me, now's the time. I'm looking to mail stuff out in the next couple of days.
A few words about the DVD: it's essentially a travelogue, which means there's a lot of scenery. It's a much different beast than this page, in that there's no running commentary, and, well, I'm not in it much. I was too busy operating the camera.
Also, the camerawork is very jittery for the first ten minutes. This is because things look a lot more stable when you're looking through the viewfinder. I re-shot most of it, but the Emperor's Palace was shot during the two weeks a year that the cherry blossoms were out, so I used my original, spastic footage. Be brave, it gets a lot more stable after that. The whole mess is just over 40 minutes.
Even if you did already email me your address, it can't hurt to do it again, so here. Over and out. Until next time.
The little Mom 'n' Pop gym I joined:
There are even street musicians.
These next guys are a little more successful. They have girls watching.
Naturally, the first band was better.
Even in a place like Kawaguchi, artists get hassled by The Man.
I even found a place that is kind of a regular hangout. It's run by a Nigerian guy named Patrick and his Japanese wife.
(L to R: Me, Patrick, Dan.)
The inside is a bit green. Here's me and Aya, a girl from work.
Aya shows her appreciation for my iPod.
One thing that consistently amazes me is the seemingly endless supply of stuff like this:
Normally I can decipher what they're driving at, but here? Your guess is as good as mine.
You can walk around forever, and still see stuff you had failed to notice the previous 370 times.
A random garage in Kawaguchi:
A giant crab. Someone alert Robyn Hitchcock.
Then...
WHO DOESN'T??!?!!?!?
It's never too early to start drinking.
Perhaps not the BEST name for a beauty parlor...
Speaking of stuff that I failed to notice but was right next to a lot of times, here's Ueno park. Or, should I say, MORE of Ueno park. I took some photos previously, but, unbeknownst to me, I only saw about 30% of the place.
A shot from an elevator overlooking a section of the park (pardon the lines, the glass in the elevator was reinforced with the stuff:)
That's not grass, that's all giant water lilies. There's a lake under there.
You can even rent a goose.
No, I don't know what the deal is with the serrated building in the back.
OK, saving this for last...
I had one of those "the whole trip was worth it just for this" experiences last week. A friend is a clothing designer for modern dancers in the Tokyo area, and she invited me to see a rehearsal (since my days off made it all but impossible to see an actual performance.)
She got into this position slowly, then held it for quite a while. Made my legs hurt just watching it.
Kind of like this:
As above, she slid into this slowly, all the way down to a perfect split. Yow.
One of about 70 consecutive twirls:
All these are screen captures from the DVD.
Guess what that means. Yep, I finished it, almost exactly two weeks later than my original projected deadline. If you haven't gotten your address to me, now's the time. I'm looking to mail stuff out in the next couple of days.
A few words about the DVD: it's essentially a travelogue, which means there's a lot of scenery. It's a much different beast than this page, in that there's no running commentary, and, well, I'm not in it much. I was too busy operating the camera.
Also, the camerawork is very jittery for the first ten minutes. This is because things look a lot more stable when you're looking through the viewfinder. I re-shot most of it, but the Emperor's Palace was shot during the two weeks a year that the cherry blossoms were out, so I used my original, spastic footage. Be brave, it gets a lot more stable after that. The whole mess is just over 40 minutes.
Even if you did already email me your address, it can't hurt to do it again, so here. Over and out. Until next time.