Someone said to me, "Brace yourself for cuteness when you go to Japan." There's a festival here, Shichi Go San, which means literally, Seven Five Three, in which the children of those ages are brought to the shinto shrines in their finest kimono. I could probably just sit at a shrine for the rest of this trip and take a thousand of these photos. This first photo, the mother and grandmother were falling over themselves to get her to pose for me.
Before I left Seattle, I looked at the famous Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji by Katsushika Hokusai, of which there are actually 46. Probably the most famous is the one with the great blue wave. I thought they would be a nice little inspiration.
Yes. Indeed.
I can't even begin to keep up with all of this! Returned last night from five amazing days in Kyoto and more shrines than you could possibly imagine. Slept until noon today and am only now beginning to digest the hundreds of photos.
Here's one for now.
First up... a scene for which I've been unable to come up with anything to say. Yes that appears to be a Buddha Reindeer. I'll have to go find another Colonel Sanders Santa to round this theme out.
We had a "Moon viewing" party on a hillside. The aim was to catch the moon's reflection in our cups of sake. Lovely. Playful. Funny, the moon appears so much larger here than at home!
And I've been working on my kanji. No idea what I've written here. Moon kanji I call this. Or "waving the camera around."
I've been told I don't take enough pictures of people. Here, I'm finding it addictive.
There was no preparation for this. I wrote this to my friend Barry after my first full day here:
"Tokyo = No travel book could prepare a person from there for here: Cityscape, food, language, collective psyche, rhythm, infrastructure, sound.
In the pouring rain I went for my first solo walk while my friend Liz attended her language class. The small part of Tokyo I've seen exists in physical layers... the transit system consists of hundreds of train lines, subway lines and buses, some stations are massive, with entire cities of food and retail and services under and over them. There's a sense that the actual ground is far below somewhere. But then just past the Colonel Sanders dressed as Santa Clause, there's a narrow alley down which I spotted a Shinto Shrine. Just like that.
Funny, I've been here 36 hours, and already the local Seattle things that seem so important, ideas and certainties about who we are and what life is about... all bets are off. New reality? I'll say!"
More later. The food is amazing.
Do not not be fooled by this image. This is a TINY TINY portion of this vast city.
