Oh wait, while we’re doing “Izzy & Joe,” here are a couple from the market taken in April…

Actually, Joe took this one…

Note for the record:  It was Joe’s last day as a 15 year-old…

Will

Coca-Cola Cylon

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaYhsgrmDQI

Bamboo Temple

I don’t remember the names but I’ll put them into the blog later.  Spent the day with an old friend, Azby Brown.  We took the train down to Kamakura from Yokohama and spent the day walking from temple to temple. The walks were almost as beautiful as the temples themselves.  We ended the day in Hayama at his publisher’s house where we took a dip in the ocean just as the sun set over Mt. Fuji.

Our first stop was in Kita-Kamakura…

Kenzoji Temple

I’m not sure of the pronunciation in Japanese, but here is the name in kanji 建長寺

Temple detail

This was actually a strange garden because if features a manicured lawn, which is rare in Japan. Typically one would expect to see stones, moss, or other ground cover; not open green space.

View out the back

Our next temple was, literally, the “money laundering temple” where you wash your money for good luck. It was located in a grotto accessible only by tunnel, at the top of a somewhat arduous climb…

Entrance to the money washing temple

Azby ensures luck

Friendly fish

From here we walked along the “Daibutsu hiking course” through jungled hills, with cicadas screaming and screeching at us. Listen to this video clip:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh5KF4rrzPo

Towards the top of the ridge, we were getting very hot and suddenly this beautiful coffee house sprung up out of the jungle-side. Turns out it was a private house that opened up a cafe in response to the large numbers of hikers who would stop in to ask to use their restroom.  It was surrealistic.  Or perhaps I was just exhausted.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp43f9fjyTs

And here it is, the Daibutsu…

The Daibutsu

But I found it more interesting to take photos of other people taking photos, or posing for them…

Straw hats: Japan Fashion 2010

Anyone can take a picture. Young...

...and old

Kamakura Bay

After about 6 miles of hiking up and down hills in 95 degree heat, we took the cute little “Enoden” train across town then caught a taxi to the Bamboo temple and got in just as it was closing for the day…

Bamboo Temple

Bamboo temple

At Azby’s publisher’s house, we met his two ‘gay’ cats, George and John. Maybe not gay, but at least male and single. George is an Abyssinian.

George

Hayama beach-side

Sunset next to Mt. Fuji

More photos in the Kamakura Gallery…

Calm in the City

www.youtube.com/watch?v=At4pmZHarlM

Amazingly, numbers in the city are not sequential. They are not even linear.  They are concentric.  So you might live on block 13, section 12, neighborhood 14 of Roppongi district in Minato-ward of Tokyo.  So yes, getting around can be a challenge.  Luckily each neighborhood has a map!

Getting around without numbers

I couldn’t believe this cute little noodle shop was still standing after all these years! It had not been swallowed up by the city.  Another place was, though…just blocks away was a famous little hovel of a house surrounded by sky-scraping apartment buildings; the owner posted huge signs in his front yard declaring “I will never, ever sell this piece of land!”

The little noodle shop that could

Koto-dori is where the antique shops used to be located. It has been taken over by the fashion houses who either cannot afford to be on Omotesando, or who eschew it for the “boutique” look.  I opened one of the first fashion stores on this street, Hunting World, in 1982 followed by Tommy Hilfiger in 1985.

Koto-dori fashion

Salesgirl

Takeshita dori

(And that is pronounced tah-keh-shta, by the way…)

Another not-shy-at-all sales girl

The more urbane Omotesando dori, where Europe’s (and Japan’s) high street fashion houses all reside…

Omotesando dori

Photo of photo

Kawaii #1

Spotted: an iPhone4!

Kawaii #2

httphv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ywuhRvOyq0

The Manga is Dead...

When I lived in Tokyo in the 80′s and 90′s, people escaped into thick phone-book sized “manga” comic books.  The kids had space-ship manga’s and the men had their soft-porn manga’s. Now, the world’s forests can breathe a sigh of relief as demand for manga has been replaced by cell phones.

…well, not entirely!

Reading while walking

See the video clip here…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pch9heU2s-A