while we're at it: home

since we've left Japan for the moment (don't worry, we'll be back shortly), let me post a couple of shots I took walking the dog tonight.

a detour from Japan and back in time: train wreck in IL

my father just sent me this image from my youth in LaGrange, Illinois... I have only the vaguest memories of this because I was extremely young, but I liked the picture anyway, so I thought I'd post it here:

(I don't know about you, but as I look at this picture, I'm wondering, did anyone ask the dark figure with the black cane where -he- was right before the accident? (he looks like a train-wreck causing villain, somehow, and if you zoomed in closer I think he'd have a moustache)).

tokyo - shibuya

Naoshima-jima

ship off Naoshima-jima

even death is better with Disney (tm)

another "n.a.g.p.b.y.w.b.m.o."

in case you've never seen a Japanese graveyard (in which case stick around here and I'll remedy that sooner or later), the stone obelisks are grave markers. you put yer loved one's ashes in them.

garage devils

file this one under "not a great picture, but you wouldn't believe me otherwise."

the guard

the guard at the palace in Kyoto

rooster maintenance

at a small shrine in Kyoto

Harajuku station, in Tokyo's Shibuya neighborhood

on the weekend, teenagers turn out in large numbers, dressed in their most excellent clothing. tourists (foreign and Japanese both) gather in even larger numbers to gape, point, giggle, and take pictures of and with the teenagers. it is an entirely symbiotic relationship. in the photo below, test your powers of perception by attempting to guess who is the tourist:

the Japanese tourist are, of course, there for the teenagers; foreigners are less discriminating.

there was a token traffic cop there, but it seemed like the only thing he had to worry about was keeping the kids from jaywalking. they were a pretty orderly bunch. (they had to be... they required too much equipment to keep themselves done up, and you can't very well do crimes when you're lugging a rolling pink suitcase full of cosmetics.)

it was also a busy shopping street for normal people. (scroll right a bit...)

monkey portraits

because you can never have enough monkeys.


never.





"bring me more monkeys!" he shouted, drunk now, slurring his words and letting the Campari slosh over his wrist. his hosts smiled and tried to change the subject, but as he grew more insistent, it became increasingly difficult.

MONSTER VENT

I have no idea what this thing is except for it's obviously to let something REALLY BIG out of the ground.

(Peter thinks it's just an air duct for the Tokyo subway but that would take all the fun out of it.)

not a good country in which to be a fish

it's not a good country in which to be a fish, it's just not. this was in just sitting outside a closed restaurant in a covered mall area in Tokyo.

kyoto 2

osaka aquarium

(there were helpful signs on the floor in case you were wondering how much aquarium you had left)



puffer fish are quite kawaii when they're not puffing.





(and for those of you who were beginning to doubt from my pictures that we were actually there, I give you Pamela, from whose presence mine may be inferred)

(the crab you see below is roughly the size of a small pony. okay, not a pony, but a good-sized golden retriever. seriously.)