Street 煉瓦

Somewhere.

Blue Tin ブルートタン

Some examples of the corrugated tin, which normally comes in red or the shade of blue shown here, and old wood that are frequently found together here.

Hongō 樋口一葉の井戸

Some stairs near Higuchi Ichiyō’s well. I love this part of Tokyo. There’s a certain charm here that I haven’t encountered anywhere else in the city.



Ichiyō’s well. A bit of a letdown in some respects, but I’m glad I paid it a visit nonetheless.



A flower-in-a-cup fixed in the painted bars of a ground-floor window with so much potential. And this was the best that I came away with. Damn.

I also just discovered that I inadvertently deleted a number of photos from this day that I was hoping to feature here. I keep looking for them on my computer, but they are long gone. A lesson in nonattachment.

Look Closely 東大の近く

I took these photos in Hongō, an historic district of Tokyo where a number of prominent writers once lived. I took the first two photos at Tokyo University, Japan’s most prestigious tertiary institution. Much of the campus is somewhat reminiscent of an industrial park, although these shots are definitely an extreme of that aesthetic. I inadvertently ended up in the first photo. The other three were taken on my way to the well near the grounds of Higuchi Ichiyō’s old home.


Air conditioning system?


This old contraption was once mounted to the back of a bicycle or scooter used to deliver food, probably ramen and other such noodle dishes. A swing tray would have been fixed to the suspension mechanism with a chain to prevent spilling when the scooter hit small bumps in the road and rounded corners. I have no idea what it was doing here, as there were no eateries nearby.


A bench on an old paved path to a temple near Ichiyō’s well.

Sugamo 巣鴨

I had some time to kill in Sugamo before meeting a friend for lunch and a long walk through Tokyo. It was rather early in the day when I was there, and not much was happening. I took these in the neighborhood near the station that is home to a number of establishments catering largely to a nighttime crowd.

They Don't Make 'em Like They Used to 鉄道博物館、鉄ちゃんの卵

I don’t consider myself a trainspotter, but I probably like trains more than most people. And so when a meeting came up that required me to travel to Omiya yesterday, I decided to go a few hours early to check out the recently opened Mecca of rail fandom in Japan, the Railway Museum (和文リンク). It was basically me, a few ferroequinologists (including one classic father-son pair aged roughly 65 and 40 respectively), and three thousand young couples with their five-year-old sons in tow (see those little feet and hands off to the right in the above picture?). Maybe I'm a rail geek after all.

More More Nakano 続々中野

I've mentioned before that as a child I was a huge fan of Godzilla, thanks to my dinosaur obsession and the TBS daytime programming, which regularly featured Japanese anime, kaijū and giant robot shows. This is a poster for the American edition of the first film. When I saw it, I immediately thought, "I want one!" Then I read the flavor text and recalled the origins of the creature. Depressing.


Tam Tam Shot Bar is around the corner from Godzilla. I didn't venture inside, but I liked the shapes and colors of the exterior.


This might be the door to Tam Tam, but I can't recall for sure. It's definitely next door. I assumed this a fired out local, but when I went past later on my way home it was open for business. Nice. Thirty years ago you could have plopped Steve, Paul, Johnny and Sid in front of this door and nothing would have looked out of place.


Terrible photo, but I had to share. This is just classic.


And finally, a life-size statue of the manga character Ashita no Joe. That's it for Nakano.

More Nakano 続中野

Today’s eccentricities will become commonplace tomorrow. Fukuzawa Yukichi wrote something along those lines during the heyday of the Civilization and Enlightenment movement that swept across Japan in the years after the Meiji Ishin. He was arguing that it was possible to advance knowledge by challenging orthodox views, which in turn would promote the further advancement of society toward a greater state of perfection.

I used the same argument today in my defense. I was pretty excited when I came home from the gym at lunch, at started dancing (kinda hip-hoppy) in the living room with the curtains wide open and in full view of the neighbors. I do this quite often, much to my wife’s embarrassment. “What will the neighbors think when they see you dancing around like that,” my wife wanted to know. “They’ll get used to it, and eventually won’t pay me any mind. And should they have company over when I’m up to my antics, I hope they’ll simply explain: Oh, he does that all the time. Pay him no mind.”

These are some shots of the restaurant/bar/boutique/grocery/etc area near Nakano Station, where I met some friends for dinner a while back. It was still early in the day when I took these, so the lights aren’t fired up and the crowds are absent. I only reduced the photos by half, so be sure to click them for larger images if you’re curious.

More Signs 標識物語、その続き

I haven't posted any signs in a long time, either. I think this display exhausts my current collection, which means I need to be on the lookout for new specimens soon.

The top two signs are pretty self-explanatory. The middle photo shows a standard "no trespassing" sign; the latter two are warning signs about sexual predators and purse-snatchers.

Koganei 小金井さくら、そのマンホール

It’s been far too long since I posted some of these. On display here are the standard and colored variants of the Koganei manhole cover.

Mad Swan 国分寺にてのお花見

Hello. These are a few snaps I took during a cherry-blossom viewing outing with my wife and her parents. This year we visited the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory Garden, which is more of a sprawling park with ponds, streams, a motley display of flora and a menagerie of aves, including one pissed off swan. The swan was, I presume, the male of a nesting pair, and was chasing away all the other fowl that dared to land in his claimed section of the pond. He even went after the large koi that came within his borders every five minutes. I’ve never seen that before.





A week of entries wouldn't be complete without a dash of commonplacia, thus, out-of-order vintage vending machina.

Nakano Graffiti 落書き

This is a sample of Japanese graffiti from an alley in Nakano. Graffiti is ubiquitous here, but it appears in certain locations more than others. Take this picture, for example. There’s some straying from the “canvas,” but not much. That’s seems to be the normal practice. And then there are the cheap photocopy sticker-paper adhesives. Pop culture at work.

Pheasant 初キジ

There's a pheasant in this picture, I assure you.


See it? (Click on the picture for a larger image if you don't.)

This is my first pheasant spotting of the year. He even put on a little display, beating his wings and belting out a classic pheasant squawk. Maybe squawk isn't the right word to describe a pheasant call. Anyway, the people over at BirdListening.com have a recording of a Japanese pheasant on their site, which you can listen to by clicking here.

I'm glad these guys are back. Not that they migrate or anything; you just never see them during the winter months.

Bike また自転車

I find myself stopping to look at old abandoned bikes more and more these days. Let's hope this new habit doesn't turn into a fetish.

Cats 猫日和

The International Office at Waseda organized a nice tea ceremony and cherry-blossom viewing session for visiting researchers, today. I had a great time, but didn’t take a single picture of the blossoms. Instead I took pictures of the cats I spotted along our walk, two of which are featured here. Everyone thought I was a little odd in that regard. I’m a cat lover; so be it.

It works, I swear! 無理無理

I wish I had an explanation for the plastic bottles filled with water and tied to the base of this power pole, but alas I have none. All I can say for certain is that they are ubiquitous in Japan—cities, suburbs, and rural locals alike. I haven't asked anyone about the bottles yet, mainly because no one is around when I pass by the homes sporting these classy ornaments. I’ll be sure to make inquires and post my findings here when I can.

I should also mention that after a little noodling, I checked the Internet using the search string “dog cat pee plastic bottles” and got thousands of hits with too many explanations to summarize here. I will say that the most commonly cited source for this practice is a talk radio program hosted by two professional gardeners in New Zealand, who recommended using the bottles to keep dogs and cats away as part of an April Fool’s joke that quickly got out of hand, spreading as far as Europe and South America. Don’t quote me on that, though; do some Internet sleuthing and see what else you can come up with.

If anything the entire experience of trying to find a reliable answer for this phenomenon has made me even more skeptical of some of the things I read or learn from hearsay.

The first two pictures are from my walk to Nakano, the last was taken near my home in January.

And Our Hearts Are Light and Merry... 年度初め

Everything starts anew in Japan on April First. The campus was packed today, with new students running around trying to figure things out and settle on the club(s) they’ll participate in during their college career, which is a big deal over here, and swarms of current club members vying for new recruits. We have similar events at the start of a new school year back in the States, of course; but the open spaces at most of our campuses are far more accommodating, so the experience is quite different. Silly me, I left the library at noon without considering the consequences and got stuck in a massive traffic jam. It took me a half hour to walk the 80 to 100 meters to the nearest campus exit, today—seriously. The first ten minutes were torture, because I barely made any progress at all. But I’m going back for more on Friday if I can, because I’d like to get a few pictures. Hopefully the students can maintain the same level of energy until then.

These are a couple photos I took many moons ago on my walk from Shinjuku to Nakano, somewhere halfway between the two. I have no idea what goes on at the Apple House (click on the photo), but I couldn’t walk past without taking a picture. The roses? Same story: lines, color, and contrast.