A selection of photos taken with film cameras while living in Japan (round 2). Most of these are with my new-ish half-frame Olympus Pen EE-3.
Category: Japan
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Somedays I Did Not Make the Most out of Living in Tokyo (and getting a year older)
One day I woke up in what, to me, is one of the greatest and most exciting cities in the world. I walked Lindsay to the train station and saw her off on a week long vacation to Thailand. At that point from around 7:15AM onwards I had complete freedom to do almost anything I could imagine in Tokyo. Practically speaking I had no constraints on my time or money, plus I was healthy and energetic.
But, I chose to spend the day sitting in the same room I sit every day, working on an electronics hobby project and trying to figure out how to make two little LEDs blink. I worked at this until lunch time, at which point I did not go out and explore some new neighborhood in Tokyo nor did I eat ramen or sushi at a delicious lately restaurant. I ate the same thing I eat (most) every day, a bowl of oatmeal with homemade yogurt. Then I worked on the blinking lights the rest of the day until the evening, at which point I went out to Matsuya, a chain beef and rice bowl place a 10 minute walk away, had the cheese beef rice bowl.
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Walking Across Tokyo Metro South to North and West to East
I completed a Tokyo bucket list item that I feel was a mild accomplishment and wanted to post a few details about it.
When we were moving to Tokyo, before we left Michigan, I thought it could be cool to walk across the entire breath and width of Tokyo’s Metropolitan area as a way to get a feel for what Tokyo was in terms of size. “What do the edges of the Tokyo metro area feel like?” I thought. It just felt like a nice thing to do.
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The first 4ish months living in Tokyo: A shorter post, probably, or at least fewer photos
We have officially been in Tokyo for four and a half months now. I wanted to record a bit about how the move went and how things are going on in this still relatively early stage of our life here – last time we moved to Japan I didn’t actually post anything until we were fairly close to leaving and I think it’s possible I missed some of the details from early on.
When we landed in Japan this time around I felt quite a bit different than last. I’ve developed a sort of constant (perceived) life-GPS or “grounded-ness” that made it impossible for me to feel that my life had totally changed when we stepped out of the airport. I still feel like me, just in Japan. That might not make sense but in the not-so-distant past I remember arriving to a new place and having an out-of-body feeling that took a LONG time to go away. This was disorienting but on the plus side, very exciting and in ways intoxicating. That said I felt (and still feel four+ months on) very very happy, you might say “joyful” when we got out of the airport.
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We’re (probably not) moving to Tokyo (edit: ok, actually we are)
Warning: This will be more of a high school emo style blog post without a lot of photos, so set your expectations accordingly!
Note: if you’re reading this, either we’ve decided to move to Tokyo, or it’s been weeks or months since this discussion came up and we’ve decided not to and the thought has been well put to bed. I’m writing this for myself, to process my thoughts / feelings and document them for the next time this type of life changing issue comes up.
Two weeks ago Lindsay got a “cold call” from a quality international school in Tokyo, Japan asking her to interview for a middle school position that starts in August of this year (roughly three months time). They had found her resume in a hiring pool from a job she had applied to a long time ago and reached out randomly and without prompting. This was totally out of the blue, and unexpected, and pretty “world rocking” to be honest. To be clear, we had absolutely zero plans on moving to Japan, or even visiting Japan this year, BUT… Tokyo! One of the worlds great cities! Japan! Curry! Onsen! Sento! Beautiful mountains and streams and Hokkaido in the fall! Easy access to Korea and Vietnam! Etc.
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A few random film photos from the past few years
The ones of people that regularly read this blog likely are aware that I have a film camera to take most photos these days. That isn’t saying a lot really, I don’t actually take that many photos nor is my heart quite in it the same way it was back in university days. That said, I wanted to post a few random photos from the past few years as I just recently FINALLY was able to go through and scan my film photos from our time living in the UK.
The photos from Japan I actually have had on Flickr for about a year now – there was a photo store in the mall in Koryo ( エコール マミ ) called Kitamura and I was able to cheaply get all of my film developed there. When I moved to York, I had a few last rolls of film from Japan to develop and there was York Camera Mart that was great. Unfortunately because of covid, I wasn’t able to developed most of the film I shot in the York so ended up developing the rest of it in San Jose when I moved out to California (where we live now – Oakland!).
Anyway, here are some photos.
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Tonight is the last night in our Japanese apartment
The past several YEARS of updates have often been written out of necessity (wanting to capture / record memories so we can look back and remember some details about the things we’ve done) more than because I had a strong urge to say something, and they’ve been long, and most importantly they’ve been very untimely.
But today, I wanted to do something slightly different and post an update as something is happening. As soon as I post this blog post, I will shut my laptop, go into the laundry area, unplug the SoftBank Hikari router and NTT fiber modem, put them in a pre-addressed box I have sitting next to me, walk to 15 minutes down the street to the post office, and send them back to their respective companies. Soon after that, the water company will come to our apartment and shut off the water. Then Lindsay will be coming home from her LAST day teaching English in Japan, saying her last goodbyes to teachers and friends at school. We’ll spend most of the rest of the evening finishing packing and cleaning. We’ll then sleep our very last night in our apartment in 広陵町, Japan, and tomorrow (likely after a morning trip to the local onsen and a final walk together through the rice fields behind our apartment) we’ll head to the Kansai International Airport (KIX) to start the long trip home.
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And now we live in Japan
About ten months ago Lindsay and I moved to Japan. Specifically a small(ish) town in the Kansai region, in Nara prefecture. The town name is Koryo, and has a population of roughly 35k. The town is roughly 30 minutes by train from Osaka, and around 45 minutes to Nara city. The other major-ish city that is nearby is Kashihara which is around 15 minutes to the East.
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Over and Osaka
In 5th grade (might have been 4th?) I started an origami club. I think there was one other member (Andros? Bob? ), and there were only a few club meetings (we were allowed to stay in during recess and do origami), but it was still a thing. I can’t tell you how many origami books I rented from the library at that point in my life – this is years before I even really knew what Japan was.
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Kyoto (last day) + Etajima + Hiroshima
On our last day in Kyoto, we visited the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Fushimi is particularly famous for the 10,000 torii gates (honoring Inari, Shinto god of rice) which lead you to (and up!) holy Mount Inari. 10,000 gates! How crazy is that? You can walk for 2-3 hours straight up the mountain-side through these seemingly never-ending gates, to give you an idea of just how crazy of an experience it was. It was pretty intense. While I was especially excited to see the vibrant orange color, I didn’t expect to see such beautiful shades of orange. It was truly quite a magical experience.
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Life couldn’t get much better, I don’t think
Pictures will come, but I just wanted to quickly post this while the spirit moved me as pictures likely won’t do justice anyway.
Lindsay and I took a night bus from Kyoto South/West to Hiroshima, arriving this morning around 6:30am. From there we took a road trolley to the port of Hiroshima, where we waited an hour or so for a ferry to take us to the Koyou port on the Island of Etajima. Each step of this trip brought us further from the city, further and further into smaller and smaller towns. People are more likely to stare and wonder what a few gaijins are doing walking down the street with giant packs.
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Kyoto + Arashiyama + Nara + Kinkaku-ji + Philosopher’s Path
Kyoto. Although still relatively large and modern, it’s OLD WORLD Japan – meaning the buildings, the customs, the food – everything is reminiscent of the past. it’s easy to imagine that you’ve been transported back in time, and frankly, fun to do so! From the BEAUTIFUL temples, cobblestone paths, out-of-this-world bamboo forests, wildlife (deer!) hanging out in shrines, geisha cruising the streets, beautiful waterways, short doorways and unbelievably friendly people…it’s a gem, there’s no question about that.
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Naoshima (aka “Art Island”)
Naoshima did not disappoint. We heard about “Art Island” from a friend in Tokyo, and man am I happy we did. Today, Kev and I wandered around the island relishing in the fall colors, soaking wet from the sweet-smelling rain and breathing in the beauty of the contemporary exhibits scattered around the island. Coming just yesterday from a month in the exhilarating, albeit frenetically paced Tokyo, Naoshima was truly a breath of fresh air and rejuvenated me in a way that I didn’t even know I needed. Maybe it was the fresh sea air, maybe it was the cleansing rain or maybe it was the beautiful exhibits, but whatever the case, it was everything we could have hoped for.
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Traveling can take work sometimes!
Hello friends, family, and everybody else.
I just wanted to take a quick second to update this blog and mention some of the things that have been going on.
First of all, as of today, we’re still in Tokyo, Japan. Specifically Koto-ku, which means, I think, the Koto ward of Tokyo.
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Bucket List Massacre v. Tokyo Fish (Tsukiji) Market and Lost in Translation Stuff
Hello everybody! Kevin here! How are you!!!?
Anyway, look, let’s get down to brass tacks. As a friend/colleague used to say, here’s the deal:
Lindsay and I had the opportunity to go to Tokyo 5 years ago, when a friend awesomely gave us the opportunity to have an extended layover in Japan on our way from SE Asia to Chicago. But, we were homesick after having traveled for 6 (ish – Nick, we’re using the ceiling function) months on the road. On that almost-layover, we were planning on going to the Tsukiji fish market, for many reasons, but because mainly, I had always wanted to see that. But we didn’t, and went home instead. Since then, it has been an itch I couldn’t scratch, because my hands couldn’t reach, if you see what I mean (it’s like, figurative language or something?).
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Japan (Tokyo) Week 1
So, wow. We’re in Tokyo. How lucky can we be?
We knew as soon as we got our airplane food, we knew we were going to be in love. I mean, look at this cute little bento!
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