I have finally sorted through my shots from Tokyo and have managed to get a few processed and uploaded. They’re not what I had expected or wanted to come back with, but they’re what I’ve got.
Since getting back a lot of people have asked me “So how was it?” And my standard response was “It’s grey. And concrete.” This is the truth, and it was one of the first things I noticed about Tokyo. In a way it was very disappointing because great photos come out of Japan to be displayed in tour guides all over the world, and they depict it as a crazy Asian version of New York: bright neon signs, happy faces, highlighted hair, whizzing taillights. Sure the lights are bright but the smog in the air mutes the glow. Everyone is dressed to the nines and looks like they stepped out of a catalog of business attire fashion. The taillights are almost exclusively taxicabs because – pshaw! – only the insanely rich would drive their own car in Tokyo. I wanted to find the stuff about Japan that was not written about and not plunked down in a Top Ten list somewhere about technology breakthroughs or weird cultural laws. Going to Japan, what did I know about Japan?

1. They’re the second (or close?) most expensive city on the planet
2. The salarymen are robots
3. Squat toilets
4. The old mixes right next to the new
5. Tokyo fashion is a name unto itself

That’s about it. So we went, sat on a plane next to some cheerful dude headed to Manila for his birthday and collectively developed sore rumps. Our flight attendant was loud and obnoxious and reminded me of Camryn Manheim’s character in Romy & Michelle’s HS Reunion (ugh, sorry). I was optimistic and spend the hours unable to sleep paging through the guidebooks and phrase books.

When you travel overseas you always forget what it’s like at the other end when you hit customs or immigration or whatever they call it. I blame jet lag. I have a bunch of stamps in my passport but I don’t recall a single incident of acquiring any of them – which is quite a shame, really. Since I first got my passport as a child I always wanted to be one of those people who had the back portion filled with stamps from all kinds of exotic places. I haven’t quite failed, per se, but I’m far from that goal. Waiting in line with a bunch of rumpled, sleepy travelers (who you’d think you’d get to know better after sitting for 12 hours in a confined space) I looked at them and was unable to recall those moments from the last ten years. Come January I’m due a brand new passport but at least I’m not sentimental about losing something I can’t even remember.

Thankfully there were Americans waiting for us on arrival. Derin and his immediate family were there at Narita to greet us and lead us to our hotel and sushi. So started a crazy week that was full of the unexpected. In many ways they are absolutely correct about Japan being a country of juxtaposition, although it was not in the ways that I had previously expected. The people are both forbidding and friendly, I was supersaturated and bored, the weather blew hot and cold. Moreover, I could never decide if the culture was as timely and scheduled as the rail system or laid back and free-flowing as the artists in Harajuku. We experienced all of the above and more, and even now, weeks later, I cannot make up my mind about the people of Tokyo. Did I enjoy myself? I think so. I was pushing myself very hard to get the bollocks to attempt street photography and I think that I have to just bow out and admit that it’s not something I will ever truly enjoy. Spending my days hunting for people and expressions caused many other opportunities to slip by. But that’s all in the Tokyo experience, I guess! Things do move too fast (particularly during the work week) and if you blink you’ll miss it. We fed off each other, the rush hour frenzy and my anxiety. In a sick, strange way maybe it was meant to be.

The city is as quiet as any American suburb. Each night I was astounded at how silent the people are despite their cramped quarters and heavy concentration. It’s like the city is holding its breath for some great moment or a big secret. It was this that made me sure that I was not in some kind of warped New York – because it’s too! darned! quiet! If it looks like a duck it must sound like a duck, right? Even the loudest, drunkest businessman yelling jovially to his friends made a very small noise in the big space that was the city. I cannot understand what rabbit hole I fell into but I could not make heads or tails of how or why basic physics suddenly seemed so different.

Shopping is taken to another level in Tokyo. I have been to New York, London, Paris and LA and only city that I have ever visited that made my wallet hurt was Tokyo. Upscale, brand-name boutiques in Ginza notwithstanding, you can find anything from rooms for 2-hour “rest” periods to whisky bars to boot stores to high fashion, even the world’s best cream puffs. All from under the comfort of your favorite metro train overpass – artificial thunder in a climate that is too metropolitan to support natural weather patterns. Being the hub of businessmen and women, train station shopping centers are bigger than malls at home (and I’m from Jersey) and cater to people who must shop on the run. A whole microcosm economy has sprouted to support the salarymen who live for their daily commute: vending machine meals, complete with alcoholic beverages and served counterside once your turn in your ticket. It’s never longer than a 30-second wait and the cheery optimism of your “server” is dished right alongside your food, whether you want it or not! I discovered that it’s generally not wanted – at least callously ignored. Most of these places are standing room only.

• Tokyo made me feel small in its size and complexity, a tiny ant crawling on a pavement as big as the universe
• … but it made me feel huge alongside the slender, perfect women who are so beautiful, stylish and petite
• The people made me feel welcome when the most haughty-looking teenager gave me a bow and an “Arigato gozaimas!” when I relinquished my seat on the train for her shopping bags
• … and yet I felt like a nobody when crowds of suit-clad businessmen plowed through me on the street corner
• I loved the culture for their politeness and decorum
• … but resented their unspoken rules for my confusion on how to behave in public

Conclusions? I have no conclusions. If Tokyo were closer I might consider going back, but I have never traveled so far from home and it is not something even I could do without careful consideration. Already my memories are fading and for once I didn’t take as many photos as I would have liked. Part of me wonders if I really did refrain fr
om ordering natto just so I could have the excuse of “Well, I didn’t get natto the last time, so….”

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Today was a rather unexpected mix of events. I have a lot of things on my plate but today I was the kid that chose to eat her veggies cold the next morning instead of warm for dinner. A good piece of advice that was once given to me: The world won’t end if you disappear for a moment. Today I disappeared.

When walking through a sleeping building, sometimes the place really does lie unchanged while the seasons roll past. If you’re lucky. Most structures see scrappers, vandals, animals and the slow atrophy by weather. This one – like the other buildings that make up the band of brothers – is relatively preserved, a miniature museum of local power-generating history. While ceiling paint has flaked into rough dandruff chips on the ground that pop under your feet and the traffic outside thunders like marching giants, we are seemingly the only intruders in decades. Unlike the other buildings, not a single dead pigeon can be found and the drip of rainwater through the decaying roof is minimal. Time and weather have not been completely stymied as is evident in the huge mushroom-like plates of organic muck growing near the filtered light on the concrete. But the foundation is solid and the bones are good. He will live again, and soon.

In this little explorer’s paradise I feel safe as houses. Beautiful clear autumn sun filters in through the thick dirty windows and outside I can see both skyscrapers and the sea. Jolly in the privacy, creative possibilities seem endless. This little powerhouse is clean enough to satisfy my love for the abstract and yet interesting enough to present good subjects. Today the light is lovely, so what else could I want?

Also today, empty hanging light fixtures are dubbed the new mistletoe of abandonments!

Johnstone Energy and the cluster of power substations that I have photographed over the past year will soon be nothing but a memory. Those who know me understand that I am reluctant to visit a place multiple times because I get easily bored, however this year I am grateful to have as many wonderful opportunities to capture the unique, abstract perfection that these buildings have shown me. In this business, nothing lasts forever and it’s an important lesson for me to learn.

Once home, post-processing was also a delight. Playing hookie just a bit longer, my photos are already done. I have learned so much in the last year that sometimes I worry that I am forgetting something important and basic… or that the education will soon plateau. However, working with these files was a real delight. Some days I can’t seem to get a single shot right and I end up with a slew of half-finished .psd files that just suck space on my HD. This time the cosmos threw me a bone. Occasionally things will just fall into the right places when you least expect it and everything does exactly what it’s supposed to. Voila! Mwah. Whew. Dodged that bullet! Now, on to the next one.

(We will not talk about the huge backlog of photos from Japan that are behaving like the aforementioned space-suck…)

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A once-in-a-lifetime experience. That is what a wedding should be. And it was, I think, for all of us. Not just for Derin and Sachiko.

How often does one get to be up close and personal to a Shinto wedding ceremony? In all my days I think I have “met” just one. And we’ve never actually met!

At the time I was overwhelmed, jetlagged, hot (Japan likes things 70 degrees and warmer, probably due to the average 3% body fat of all of its citizens), scared, frustrated, and any number of other emotions that come with being a stranger in a strange land. Things were also happening so fast! We were on the grounds of Meiji shrine and almost the entire family had already purified themselves in the water before I had even thought to take my camera out of the bag and begin shooting.

I’ll spare all the gory details because while the ceremony was different, it was also very similar to wedding ceremonies around the world. Derin looked dapper and Sachiko was beautiful. They stood in front of everyone (actually, between everyone) and officials officiated. Bells were shaken, sake was drunk, leaves were twisted, heads were bowed. For the record, the sake was delicious and nestled very nicely in our empty stomachs. Afterwards we gathered in the shrine’s big photo studio and somehow the Japanese attendees and he American guests were able to reach a perfect understanding without knowing a word of the others’ language. Photographers and their practices of blinding their subjects and taking a million shots when everyone wants to go get some food is, apparently, completely universal. Additionally, a good photographer will always make you laugh, regardless of if s/he speaks your language!

I am absolutely certain that photographers everywhere think the same thought at some point of their life: “Dude, shooting this group is like herding cats.”

The photos that were taken pre-reception were as crazy and bright and full of cheerful smiles and family pride as any church wedding I had seen. We just laughed more at our shared efforts to speak English, or Japanese. Dinner was a seemingly endless flow of Japanese haute cuisine. I was stuffed and content and in the company of some of my oldest friends — people I had known in some very troubling times of my life and almost never thought I’d see again. And how funny to think that some of them live an hour away from me and it took going to Tokyo to see them again, after 10 years!

We met new friends and had a glorious adventure walking through the rain in Shibuya afterwards. I was left happy, warm, and fuzzy and that weekend bonded over strange pickled delicacies and new libations at the izakayas. Befriending individuals from such different backgrounds is nourishing for the mind and soul: for example I have now gotten to know someone who must be the first individual that I have ever known in any sort of capacity who has never been to the United States. Realizing this was very odd for me and made me sad for our wars and the condition of politics today. He is not different from anyone I have befriended in the US, which is (in a way) even odder and sadder. It makes me feel very tired and almost…. trippy. How strange life is, and how different it can be for each and every one of us! While some people think I am well-traveled, I am nothing compared to so many people on this planet. Sometimes I feel so intelligent and sometimes I feel so dumb because I am fluent in only one language and have only lived in one country my entire life.

I’m not sure what the take-home message was, except that I am supremely grateful to my friends for getting married and allowing me to experience all of these things and meet such people. I know that this was not their intent but thank you anyway. And a million heartfelt congratulations.

Gallery of the day

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This trip is drawing to a close. I have lost track of everything going on and have given up taking notes on things that happen through the course of the day because there is just too much going on. I’ve started relying on my photos to tell the story rather than anything I can say. In the next few weeks I’m sure I’ll have better tales to tell but I’ve still not fully adjusted to the time difference and have been in a constant state of grumpy exhaustion.

Plus, the weather has been horrible. I’ve never seen a fully clear day, which in a way was fine with me because it meant I never missed a spectacular sunrise. I know that I’m on an island but I never saw any natural bodies of water until this afternoon out the window of the shinkansen. So much for the famous ocean-borne rising sun.

I’m so very ready to go home. Unfortunately, I’ve been ready to go home two days after I got here. The people in this country are wonderful and friendly and are my near-perfect ideal of politeness, dignity, and decorum but I feel no attachment to the land or this way of life. Despite this I’ve seen an amazing amount of unique, quality goods – so much that I have been moved to shopping. “Shopping” is a word I most often use with disdain so it amuses me that I’ve been doing it so voraciously here. I’m going home with significantly more stuff than I brought (though fortunately not enough to make customs raise any brows.)

Hopefully when I get back I’ll settle quickly back into Ye Olde Life. I miss my home, my puppy, my bed, my car, my computer. Most of all I miss not waking up in the morning fearing another day of blank stares when I try to order a scone for breakfast! And then biting into it knowing fully what to expect: blueberry or cranberry-orange perhaps, but not potato salad or hot dog bits.

Modeling my new mittens… er, I mean muttons in Yoyogi Park.

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Needless to say I am more than a little bit concerned with my shots and my processing. I am grateful the man on the right was there, and I could not have asked for a more perfect person to play the role. In many way I think Japan is very firmly embedded in the past: Hasselblads, Mamiyas, old Nikons… I feel stupidly naive shooting Canon digital.

For now I hope that some noodle places are open, and then I’m off to play paparazzi to the cosplay girls in Harajuku!

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Whoops.

I thought the day was over, but I was wrong! Patience is a virtue, of which I have none.

After an unintentional nap (jet lag? carrying 20 lbs of camera gear for 9 hours dodging salarymen?) we headed in the evening to Ueno because that was where Sachiko had suggested looking for a pair of boots. We went – after a cup of the phenomenol house green tea in the room to energize – and found ourselves in one of the biggest train stations I’ve seen yet. I could spend all day looking around at the wares and the people and their unique sense of fashion. The store we ducked into first was a music store because I always have an intent to buy some local music when traveling. Being completely unfamiliar with J-Pop I thought I’d try some of that but nothing really called to me. After a quick listen on one of those Picks of the Week type thing I picked up a CD by an artist named Chihiro Onitsuka, kind of a mellow Japanese piano/rock chick.

Ueno has an enormous shopping district, mostly (from what I’ve seen) department stores around the JR station and then a maze of tiny alleys lined with huge pachinko casinos, strip clubs, hourly hotels, restaurants, and street vendors. You can find anything from rooms for 2-hour “rest” periods to whisky bars to boot stores to high fashion… even the world’s best cream puffs. Seriously, this place (called Beard Papa Sweets. Yay Engrish!) puts all other cream puffs to shame: the pastry is crispy and flakey and the cream is made fresh and piped to-order. I’ve never had cream like that before! Eating them while dodging men in suits through the smokey haze of yakitori restaurants in the dim street lights was an experience in and of itself. Most of the shops closed at 8 and the proprietors were very kind about kicking us out. But some were open – it was hit-or-miss wandering through the stalls trying to figure out who was leaving and who was staying.

The best store was a place called U2 – I would have happily spent all of my yen in that shop. The bottom floor held the staples of the punk-tinged fashion of the young Japanese men you see everywhere with military-inspired outerwear and raggedy scarves and fingerless gloves. I even found a necklace made of allen wrenches, nuts and bolts! Apparently the style now is overalls-styled pants letting the straps hang down. (Note: I did this about 6 years ago and back then it certainly wasn’t considered “cool.”)

Funny that there was so much awesome grunge couture there, but I walked out with a pair of the most adorable (And impractical) mittens ever. But how could I not? They look like sheep!

Dinner was in the JR station at a place called “Homemade Curry Time.” This place is awesome. Inside it’s like a mush between a truck stop and Johnny Rockets. Before you go in, you insert your money into this vending machine thing outside the door and push the button corresponding to the dish you want. It issues a ticket and then you sit down at the counter and hand it to the guy standing there. 3 seconds later he brings out your plate and you eat it with a HUGE spoon while surveying the salarymen next to you. I don’t know if the curry was actually homemade or if it was the same boxed S&B; stuff that mom used to make, but it was darned good with just enough kick to make your sinuses perk up.

Perfection.

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Friday started off with a phenomenal udon place right across the street from our hotel. We walked in not sure what the Japanese eat for breakfast, but since all the suits were going in and coming out we figured it would pass. I have never had such good tempura before, even though I only realized after we paid that the most important part of crispy tempura was dipping it in a bowl of noodles with bonito flakes.

Still, it was good enough to be legendary. We’ll give it another shot tomorrow morning.

Street photography was the name of the game even though some of the local authorities weren’t too impressed with me and my desire to sit there and shoot people. However Derin was right on the mark about the police not wanting to raise a scene when they don’t know how to communicate with you. At Shiodome the officer came up to us to ask what we were doing, but heard us talking and then backed away. This goes against my nature and I do feel bad, but there’s no way to toughen up your skin without poking it a few times with a sharp stick.

After getting lost in a few business districts we accidentally wandered into Ginza and shopped at the Japanese version of H&M.; It’s unfair that stores will have wonderful things in display on the mannequins but do not actually carry half of them in store. Also, maps on the street constantly change orientation. I understand that this is to make it easier to reference what you are looking at in real life but I am used to “North” being equivalent to “Up.”

Lunch was with the crowd at a swank restaurant somewhere on the 27th floor of some building. Like last night, since Sachiko was leading the food just appeared on its own and kept appearing. There was duck, mochi, salmon, sake, beer, rare steak, vegetables, microgreens… I don’t even remember (hence I take a gazillion macro photos with the point and shoot), and it all fades into a satisfied blur after the second cup of cold sake. The food here is excellent. The company, when we have it, is even better.

The Japanese women wear the best boots in the business. They are also very thin-skinned in terms of climate: it’s about 67F here in the afternoon and they are bundled in shawls, coast, gloves and scarves while I sweat in a tank top. I cannot even describe the number of suits I’ve seen in any 5-minute period. And despite how large and developed the city is, it’s clean, very quiet and orderly. I cannot make heads or tails of this place and although I usually relish being away from home, I miss our little house in suburbia.

Trav shooting street photos at Tameike-sanno station:

Tomorrow is the Big Day. Two more days in Tokyo before we skip for Kyoto and I realize all the things I wanted to see and missed.

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Or day 3? I have no idea anymore. The last time I lay down and had real sleep was Monday night. It is now… umm, Thursday night, 30 minutes to Friday morning.

Although most of my day was grueling and painful, it was also wonderful. We had dinner with Derin, Sachiko, Zack and Bob at a tiny little sushi bar in the middle of an alley somewhere downtown. The chef sent us rounds of whatever Sachiko sweet-talked him into and we got little bowls of mysterious dishes and soups that I would never have thought to try. Including the “scrapple of the vegetable world.” Oh where was Tony Bourdain? No mountain rectum, but some kind of gray speckled aspic never made it close to my tongue because the solid rubbery mass squeaked and bounced off my teeth.

Yikes.

Businessmen are ubiquitous and drunk. Commuter trains are packed to bursting after 11 PM. Pachinko parlors are a second home to men in suits. Already we have seen one man so inebriated on the train his face was smashed against the seat. But everyone is impeccably dressed. Tomorrow morning I may have to forgo Tsukiji market for clothes shopping so I don’t get looks for being sloppy. I can never remember which one to use in time: “Su mi ma sen” or “Go men na sai!”

But the people are friendly, the sushi is orgasmic and our hotel room is far more luxurious than I had expected.

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The final rush is here! Three sleeps to go unless we follow Dave’s advice and just not sleep the last night (a ploy to make the travel time shorter.)

Someone asked what equipment I was bringing and I was a little shocked to see it in list form because I usually pack lightly, a maximum of one or two lenses. Anyway, I present the list of ingredients for this trip. Let’s see what kind of images I cook up with them:

2 – 24-105mm f/4
1 – 8mm f/3.5 (fisheye)
1 – 17-55mm f/2.8mm
1 – 17-40mm f/4
1 – 85mm f/1.8
1 – 580 EX II

It seems like a lot, but that is for two of us for 10 days. Somehow I get to juggle all of that myself using both bodies shooting the wedding events. Hmm. Maybe I will chicken out and just have Trav be my backup shooter. After all, one day (today) playing with his camera is not really enough to get me familiar with shooting fully manual on-the-go.

Also, this is also the first time in a while I’m not going with the 24mm TS. I sort of feel like I’m missing my security blankie. Uh oh…

Ummm, I also realized just now that in the last two months of frantic lens-choosing and technical preparation, I neglected to figure out what the heck I am going to wear to this wedding.

Crap! Gotta run and ransack the closet.

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In many ways I am a lazy bum. Matt, I’m sure, knows this – particularly because I tend to ride on his coattails when it comes to finding nice old buildings to photograph. My excuse is that I am not only relatively incompetent when it comes to that sort of research, but I am not feverishly driven to do it like… *cough* many people are.

I should talk about the Schneller Brewery. After all we spent a small amount of time there and I had many thoughts running through my head in the quiet. It’s a nice little place, quite historic as breweries tend to be, and I should find it a little odd that of all the buildings I have seen over the years, breweries tend to be a category in and of themselves. The place is trashed, plain and simple. And it is so well-trashed that I couldn’t even begin to guess how old the damage is.

The business has been abandoned for over 4 decades so I hear, so there’s a lot of room for speculation. The basement level was not quite as bad as the chop-shop we strolled into in Philadelphia last summer, thank god, but I wasn’t left with a feeling of warmth and good cheer. It was dark (duh), filled with refuse, and stank like some sort of resin-derived product that reminded me of bow rosin. How odd: the spine-tingling hyper-awareness resulting from the guys pushing me to go in first co-mingling with thick memories of violin lessons in music school. Fear of being jumped makes an interesting sauce to stuffy soundproofed practice rooms, though the sweaty palms blurred the lines between past and present!

Traffic is quite loud in the brewery because there are very few windows left. On the outside it is lovely old red brick capped with green copper roof. Inside it is ruined and brown. The park across the street turns out to be a hot gathering place for some noisy locals and it’s annoying to have to find alternate routes from the basement to the first floor because of them. We don’t really want them seeing us and coming over because it certainly would not be in that “Hey whatcha guys doing and can we join ya?” kind of way.

The highlight of the evening was, to me, not the brewery but the place we visited afterwards. And even though none of my shots from that lovely second place turned out even half usable, I’m a year overdue for spilling those memories into a tangible medium….

… but that’s not going to be happening right now, either.

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