post 32. good night and good luck.

the family once again shocked me into a speechless moment tonight. bearing gifts for us. i didnt know what to say. apart from now i have an extremely cool pair of traditional japanese sandals made from some of the nicest qood i have ever seen. luckily chris (the walking filofax) will remember what its called. it was again really hot an dreally sticky today, so after developing my image ideas from last nights breakthrough, which i have been told isnt really very innovative but has indeed been done many times before ('never there though' i like to add!) we headed for nearby arashiyama adn the zen garden of 1930s silent fimstar. makes me appreciate what a fine job the botanmical garden staff have done these past 22 years. it was just like being back in edinburgh but only hotter and stickier. i.e. when there is no-one else there i prefer edinburgh. good sign. as always i find when im away. i miss my city. its sounds, its smell, the dry air, clear air. its familiarity. although now also feel very much at ease in kyoto. with all its history and tactility. its really a place you feel you could just reach out and touch. but you wouldnt want to disturb it, incase it were spoiled.



kosho's dad was very impressed by my photography adn requested my photos for his website. adn he is considering using one for an album cover. i am very flattered. even if he doesn't use them it was nice to be able to connect with him in some way, it is with him i have felt greatest regret for my lack of Japanese.
after the garden we went to a very 'different to what i am used to' flower shop and chose flowers for koshos mum and then came home and made them cards to show our appreciation. along with my greatest thanks and photographs i feel i have little else to offer. but they seem happy and we have been told to return. with girlfriends. lol, koshos mum is very keen to meet polly and grace. astonished at their ability to make us cook and wash up i believe...although we have assured her that the responsibilities and chores are shared equally.
after dinner i wanted to develop further my light photos and felt a collaboration would be a lovely way to end what has been a fantastically productive three weeks. so the three of us treked up to the temple with torches,a camera and tripod. then set about being inspired.
here are some of the results. again i, along with kosho and chris are happy with what we achieved.















sorry that was alot of photos and not many words. i am quite tired now and am aware that i only have 3hours before i syart my 30 hour day. oh yeah and i saw a crazy stick insect and a big snake today too. reminded me a little to keep an eye out. after which i turned round into a huge spiders web. properly freaked me out for a little bit. i wasnt just scared, i was more deeply sorry for my clumsiness in destroying something which had taken so much effort and such a long time to build. mr. spider i am sorry.
thankyou for stickking with me folks and i hope you have enjoyed my adventures.
maybe next time you can be here too. until that point i have 3728 photos and a plethora of videos for us to absorb and filter.
love+peace. x

the pen-ultimate addition.

well welly well. it was the second last day today. day 20. a late start was had by us all. aprt from koshos mum who was very excited about going upto tokyo to see a concert tonight. she was travelling on the shinkansen there and then getting the sleeper back. without the bullet train, the sleeper takes seven hours. the journey for us was 2andahalf. thats a hell of a fast train. i am very excited about coming home. new flat, new beginning. i have alot of material (? photos and stuff) to share with you all and look forward to hearing about everyone elses adventures while ive been away. to be honest with you i cannot wait to fly again. on the flight over we saw the flat plains (Planet Earth style wilderness) of lower eastern siberia. oh my god they looked pretty darn special. adn ofcourse the films were good too. i hope its a different selection for on the way back. i think i watched all the ones i wanted to on the way here. i have managed to fit all of my stuff into two bags. i feel pretty clever about having brought a spare. Genius even. tonight i went out, after watching matrix revolutions on kosho's dad's projector adn 5.1 cinema surround pioneer sound system. it is an actual private cinema. i'll need to take a photo of his t.v. with chris in it (the photo) for scale. its big...oh yeah. and took some photos using our new tripod. funtimes people. the area is pure colin mcrae style japan. really beautiful little windy roads white street lights and the longest little single track tunnel i have ever seen. its actually perfect. so i made use of it.


what do you think of that then eh? no photoshop necessary just a torch adn some manic running around. i like it. although i got pretty sweaty and scared by all the japanese racers who use the tunnel as a track. not as many as there would be though as its local folklore taht its haunted. kosho and his family are quite funny in their superstitious and then stubborn ways. they wont go in the temple at night andthey wont go al;ong the tunnel. even through the day. oh we saw real wild monkeys today. first time for me. discounting the ones in gibralter as they were just midget spaniards. the area up the side of the arashiyama lake, a damned part of the river nearby is like a proper jungle, with real jungle sounds and monkeys. i say real jungle sounds because on the top of the kyoto station they have piped in bird song to make you feel more with nature in their ultra fake rooftop garden. so i was weary of the sounds until i realised where they were coming from. primarily flopping fish, cecadas and monkeys. i tried to get a photo but they are fast little buggers and prettyu aggressive too, so didnt want to use a flash or appear threatening in any way.


i thinkm it looks a bit like that photo of the saskwatch. you know the one where it is supposed to be him running through the woods. big foot. we had a nice walk actually. and came upon a collective of people which kosho was very scared of. so then we went back. some religious sect or something. here is one of their signs.


mount delights water laughs sounded alright to chris and i ass it was very sticky adn it had just been raining so we were wet anyway. chris was very tempoted by the river. i was wet enough, although not really wet at all, just soggy. he deciedd no.probably a good idea given the depth of the river and the probably significant raisins.


it was quite funy as we were watching a big monkey in a tree chris was unintentionally mimicing his actions by picking away at his arm adn shoo-ing away flies. it made me chuckle and remember about the fact that we are animals too. just we have umbrellas.
after our walk we walked to the supermarket adn after deciding taht we were going to make fish pie for the family, had to opt for the whatever was recognisable and available in the shops approach. a tasty chicken adn vegetable dish was produced though. a kind of chicken lasagne slash potato hot pot. as there were no lasagne sheets. tasty. and much appreciated by the family. as was the peach crumble and cream we had after. yum. was just a shame koshos mum wasnt here. although she wont let us do anything, no waching up no helping cook, no nothing. such a good host. although i appreciate it i think it frustrates chris, as he likes to be able to help. my help is to stay out of the way. and be grateful. fair enough i think...maybe.
this was our dish, photographed in a traditional japanese style way. you order foiod by pictures and plastic copies in restaurants.


it was kind of our way of saying thankyou. and i shall make a card too, as chris says he is no good at this. im sure he is though.
ok its late. adn i am tired. so if i think of anything alse i did today, other than pass out on the tatamis this morning, and wake up with mary snuggled into my side. it took me a while to work out it was her. but i got there. as i said, we were all a bit tired. although chris managed what soiunds like a fairly hefty run this morning. in this heat, i think hes mad. there are guys who pull carts around for a living though. but not on bikes just running. properly nutters. but big resp[ect for their fitness. heres a photo.


ok im done. i shall read my book, a hand me down froim chris. i enjoyed the first part. the second is a bit too long. but i shall persevere and hope that the third part is better. a;though i may just skip this one. its about a guy who lives in trees all his life. what was that guys name again? oh yeah, swampy. i wander what hes upto now. anyway. hope you are well.
big love.x

'Whats for you will not go by you.'

i bought two watches. a skirt/shorts. a scarf. 3 extremely cool tshirts. (two extremely cool tshirts, the other was red.) four mugs. a bowl. a side dish. a large dish. that was today. i must stop. my spare bag is now fool. that wasnt misplelled. that was...haha. fool. i pity no one. we may see a tsunami wiuth this next typhoon. another wird weather condition to tick off in my 'i spy' book. remember them? did i ever actually finish one. has anyone? haha. has anyone actually finished the whole series. in other words has anyone actually seen EVERYTHING. you know if thats a negative captain. i may have just thought my way into a vocation.
am very much looking forward to coming home. although it will be sad to leave this extremely special place. special in every sense. but the temple adn this lovely family in the warmer sense. how was your day? bet it wasnt as sticky as mine. watermelon rules. k freakin'. O. i wish i could post videos on this thing.
love from south of the equator all the way to you. night night.x

p.s i just looked that up and i am nowhere near south of the equator . i am no where near the equator. i verifiably north of even the trpics. so ignore my south of the equator and you will just have to settle for my good old northern love. adn the point of this email was to tell you i bought two watches and will not wear them. i do not like watches. in Great phrases i trust. x

toKyo

like Kyoto. toKyo is in Japan. or Nippon. as i found out it was known as in the native Tongue. Nihongo.
the crafty amongst you (you know who you are!) will have also noticed that they are an anagram. this is interesting because neither chris nor i could remember this testy little word and have just spent the last ten minutes looking foir what it is on the internet. it is not easy to find a word that you have lost. when you cant really describe it because your description usually always requires the word. i look forward to having a lovely big party to celebrate our family and all its loveliness.
so yes, i digress. or maybe i dont and i intentionally tangentiallise my thought process to avoid a very long. very, very lengthy description. indeed story describing our last three days. i feel like we did alot....

i shall list it as i think about it., as it will help me write about it or retell the story atleast in the future. we got up monday. realised the train left 30mins before we thought so stress and rush. NOZOMI 700. a very fast, efficient, clean vehicle. we waited 45mins to wait for typhoon to chill out. comfortable. big seats. i fell asleep. at the window seat. lovely. into tokyo. typhoon. VERY wet. wheres the hotel? kosho had photo of the map on his phone. couldnt really make it out. had left my compass on my pillow in kyoto. found hotel. very clean. dropped our bags. 12pm. went to shibuya. saw huge crossroads. didnt believe it was them spent the next day looking for them. found a really nice noodle bar. really tasty. guys were cooking infront of us. amazing authentic. fast. i beat kosho eating with chopsticks. the padawan becomes the master...chris got nose bleed. i took photos while we waited. walked around a bit. found tower records. big shop. walked around a bit more. photographing. back to shibuya station and then onto shinjuku. big tall buildings. looking for cosmopolitan building or something. found it. got coffee. went up the building it was free.....wait a minute. ive written all this before....
back to hotel. went out for meal. horrible. tourist cafe. full of the o.c lot. felt shit being there. waitress a bit nuts. kosho felt weird, mini west we had found in the east. walked about a bit after. found love hotels and other rather risque bits. quickened our pace. got lost in shibuya. thunderstorm. lots of very strong lightening. extremely heavy rain. couldnt find station. time of last train was approaching. askied passer by. very helpful.showed us the way to station. through university found random station. got on train. found out we had been really close to the station we actually wanted before we walked for miles with nice guy. got back to kanda. where we were staying. went to bed. nice to have a bed after fouton for two weeks. got up went to akihabra for breakfast went to contemporary art centre. found it strange. the people.

here is a sign for people visting the art centre.


my patience for oragami was not at its best that day.

you are supposed to make a little Totoro cartoon character than stand him infort of the scenes and take a photo. there was a lady who had brought her favourite toys to also pose infront of the screens. its just not normal. for me.

everyone there to see anime exhibition, we were the only ones in the other exhibition. different approach to art. different not strange. had lunch. pasta. tasty. made art in art centre. empty locker. now i have the key. lol. dont mind if you ask. but im not sure yet.



walked the 1km back to the station. hot. on train upto ginza, i think. just like new york. all the parts of the city starting to llok the same. just diffenetly dressed people. but architecturally adn structurally similar.


photo of street in ginza. sorry, there was not much thought put into this photo. just lots of people and many many signs. oh the one minute english lessoin on the train. can you tell me when you would use many as opposed to much, having never thought about it before thanks to that handy little video i now can.

found huge crossing. this is a pretty unexplanatory of scale photograoh. but an action shot all the same.



sat and had expensive ice cream. but it was extremely tasty. went to wander around and try and find art galeries that the japan:lost planet. lonely planet. book said about. couldnt find them found the ikibuki. big old traditional theatre. instead. glanced at it then. got subway back to kanda. had dinner. i might have just missed a bit. seems not long since i was eatin g ice cream...place we found for dinner was tres intersting. under the railway line. behind a few beaded curtains. and a clear polythene one that was mighty difficult to work out where the opening in it was. had saki. big glass. strong stuff when gulped. advice would be to sip it and try and work out what it is that it tastes like. funny food. not really a restuarant at all. bemused the waitresses. got on train to akihabra in search of manga cafe. funny busking bands/j-pop girl with a massive (male) crowd. couldnt find an interesting looking internet cafe. back to kanda on train. found one we all agreed on. i thought it might be interesting atleast although a bit geeky. did not like that place. had to leave and sit outside. it felt seedy and wrong. yuck. sitting on the railing outsiude waiting for chris and kosho looking at the crowds of people around. then realised they were punters, pimps and prostitutes. there is actually a queue of taxis waiting just for their business. very interesting. had never witnessed before and wouldnt have thought if we hadnt been approached by a guy trying to sell us girls earlier in the day. well, thats what kosho translated him as. seemed like just a nice bloke to me. dressed all smart etc. so after that experience it was time for bed. oh yeah, thats what i missed out. we went up tokyo tower.



pretty much a red and white version of eiffel tower (from photos ive seen of eiffel tower, would like to visit gay paris.) this was between when we were in ginza and kanda. i cant remember what the area was called. but we found about a thousand gizo aswell. little buddhist statues to remember children. you pray to them for lost children adn their welfare and happiness. nice idea i thought. they were all dressed with little knitted hats and windmills. very lovely. adn quite similar to a certain idea i had. unfortunatly bad light and lack of tripod meant unable to take good photos. sorry. here is an attempt.



tower was high and busy. good view. some nice photos i like from there. here is one. i want to make some big prints when i get home. maybe splash out on expensive paper for the machine at college.



and then it was back to kanda etc. this morning we got up early had to leave hotel by ten. went to tokyo station to lock excess baggage away until later. got on funny train to crazy man made island. about the size of fife. where everything is from early to mid nineties. crazy postmodernism to the absolute maximum. extremely surreal. visited the science museum.



funtimes. got hand stickers. i chose red as background. chris chose blue. i was wearing red. chris usually wears blue. i think i see a connection. psychology is interesting. went up biggest ferris wheel in 1999. lol. i think london eye is bigger now. still 115m up in a carriage with strong sidewinds is high enough for me.



then went to toyota motor history musem. awesome. i want a subaru 360 deluxe. rory check it out. oh, they had a delorean aswell. bare metal was nice. excellent shop, would have probably passed out if i had seen it 15years ago. that makes ME feel old. sorry. back on funny train to somewhere. got some more tasty noodles. very tasty. nice clean place. had to pay at machine before you sit down and then the guy makes it for you and hands it over. nice system. easy for me to understand. nice floors aswell adn new bathroom. got on train back to tokyo station. its a rubbish image sorry. i rushed it. the whole thing.



about hour and half before shinkansen(bullet train) was due to take us home to kyoto. saw the tokyo station builduing from front. western architecture. strange. but true as always. got tasty ice cream adn coffee i forgot what i was doing and ate all the ice cream out of my cone with the spoon provoded then felt guilty for the ocne and had to eat a huge wafer on its own. should have seen the next bit coming, chris and kosho wnet off to big bookstore i lay adn looked up listeming music. when they came back the book stire sounded great so i thought id pop in. we still had to find where wed left our bags in the tokyo labyrinth before the train. they werent beside david bowie, but chris found a puddle of wee. 5pm now and the train leaves the platform at 5.46pm. nothing either way. efficient. so went into bookshop, found amazing books. and read through some pictures and lovely magazines. found awesome book. so was taking isbn numbers etc. decided to buy a book for the train. then remembered about train. it was now 5.31pm. ouch....

so i bought the book. ran down 4 flights of escalators. well, 2 flights, got stuck behind lady after that. was running out of shop when i saw kosho going up the escaltor. arg. 'we have to go ross' the train will be leaving. we ran out the store. out of the building. onto the street. over the wide road. over the next wide road. into the train station. it was maybe 32degrees. by the way. down the stairs. into the seathing corridor of 3billion people. along it. the wrong way. found a map. we ran back along it with the next 3 billion people (im surprised i didnt see you guys, although i guess it was pretty busy, did you see me? i was the one red all over) for about 500 meters. bumped into mr mackie, who had had an equally exciting 10 mins. found my key. found my locker. got my bag. adn my computer. this was lucky. ran up the stairs of...alot of people. crossed my fingers for the train. realised we still didnt know where the shinkansen was...found the right terminal. ran and ran and ran. up 35thousand steps and into the first waiting carridge. luckily it was ours. exciting stuff. then the train left and the rest as they say was easy. it wasnt until three hours later that i realised how heavy my bags had been. as chris reminded me adrenaline will have kept me going.

the book is really good though. its a wee taschen book about a japanese architect who goes by his second name alone. Ando. nice work and interesting man. kosho is still recovering. a buddhists life is not meant to be quite so stressful.



so that was tokyo in a breath. maybe some time i can elaborate on something. but for now i shall find a couple of pictures for you then fall asleep. safe in the knowledge that i need to start wearing a watch and remembering things. i hope you've had nice day. lots of love. Ross. x

a little memory.

yey, im in tokyo baby. woopwoop. ah-hmm. bullet trains are fa-ast. dont let anyone tell you otherwise, but as we whirled through the japanese countryside between kyoto and tokyo this morning. out of interest and intrigue the kyo in both of these means capital, but the to is differnt. in the tokyo it means east capital and i cant remember in the kyoto, something equally as fun im sure....back to the story. we had to stop due to the newest typhoon not as big sweeping its way through the mean streets of tokyo. they are not really mean it just sounded better. so we were to wait for 45minutes for the rain to clear enough for us to continue. it was cool though, there were five nozomi bullet trains all lined up. nozomi means hope in japanese by the way, or have i already told you this. we met a girl the other day one of koshos friends girlfriends who was called nozomi, she couldnt speak a word of english but i thought id amaze her with my trivia anyway, she looked blank then giggled with her boyfriend. i thought it was a nice name. this is our train, the nozomi n700. only released earlier this year it has a different shape engine cab to the original nozomi bullet trains. i prefer the originals. check em out on wikipedia if you want to be ultra cool like me. im not ultra cool by the way, that was sarcasm.


anyway, tokyo is massive. huge. bigger than new york, but not as tall. we were up the tallest building already, which was free by the way. not quite the 60dollars or whatever it costs to go up the empire state and i have to say the staff are alot nicer here too. but you dont get to outside and the glass is not non reflective so the photos are not quality. so i took lots to make up. luckily i spent along time last night uploading my stuff to my spanking new externalharddrive so now i can afford the space that all these photos are taking up. here is tokyo from the north tower of the metropitan government buildings. tokyo is officially a metroplois as it is made up of so many differnt cities. not a city itself.


this is the guy that cooked us lunch.


sorry rthe images are so small, the internet connection is taking forever and i dint have the patience to wait the twenty minutes it is taking to upload the big ones. we found a really naff little noodle-esque bar. a kind of quick and plenty of tokyo. in shibuya adn i had meat with my noodles. again no english in the establishment so kosho filled in the gaps for us. we would be utterly lost without that man.
oh yes that reminds me why i started writing this blog, i remembered earlier what i was doing when my back was cooking (my back is much better today thankyou, although still rosy its not nearly as sore and no other side effects) i was writing up my version of our travel story. i only got so far but i photographed the pages and wanted to post them up so as you can read....but the internet is being very temperamental here in the hotel so i will have to leave it before i get upset with it. i shall try again later. after our evening tonight.
catch you laterl.

each hat hand crafted.

the 100 yen shops are legend, today i bought some plastecine in anticipation of possible works for tokyo (all for only 100yen. i found chris the m,ake up mirror he has been looking for aswell.) i figure even if i just do small things 'Installation: Tokyo' will look nice on the c.v. took the exhibition down today. it was quite sad really. i liked it alot. ive got loads of really lovely comments in my book. they are all in japanese, so ive been told they are really good. about all of us and the exhibition in general. and especially about kosho, quite the dark-horse i'll have you know. the characters look great, some are so complicated its really amazing that anyone can remember them. up at 7 tomorrow and on the Bullet Train at 9. cant wait. its been a bit of a far-fetched wish for me ever since phillipa forrester introduced me to the 'train that travels as fast as a ferrari' on tomorrows world. well worth the hundred pounds!
hope you had good days and will speak to you soon.
heres a photo of kosho in the gallery today. actually as it was taken. skills people.

'Cruisin' with the bitches.'

its a lame title. but maybe it fits. check this guys look at me. as if its just normal to be riding your mobility scooter, with three dogs, in a sailer top whilst having a smoke. maybe hes right, maybe it is just me.