our lady of

I arrived in Tokyo at 5 am, waited for docking and sleepily got on a train at 6. Tokyo has an excellent train system and so much english signage I found my way around very easily. I got to Asakusa at around 7 and wandered around the Kannon Temple, watching the schoolboys buying lucky prayers, old women feeding the birds and the sellers of new years decorations setting up their stock. Pine seedlings, coloured Kale and many types of straw rope were for sale to make your own decorations or there were premade wreathes and standing bamboo arrangements. Asakusa has a warren of covered shopping streets with fantastic sweets shops away from the touristy central avenue.

After making my way to the Ryokan, I weirdly just bumped into Karen and went with her to have breakfast. The Asakusa district is quiet and calm, and I think having this quiet base is one of the reasons I really enjoyed Tokyo. Later that day I met Takako at Ueno station and we went on a wander to Skai the Bathouse (gallery converted from old cento bath). We walked through Ueno park and the cemetary where Tak’s family have a section. Again so quiet and beautiful.

Then we went downtown towards Shibuya and visited the Watari-Um museum which had a fascinating exhibition of historical material and botanic drawings of Minakata Kumagusu, a very famous Japanese botanist and writer who specialised in the study of fungi, particularly of slime moulds. He also wrote the Minakata Mandala, a quasi spiritual/scientific text about interconnectedness. This show was my favorite exhibition in Tokyo apart from the Pipillotti Rist show at the Hara Museum. Mostly things I saw were too designy and all a bit easy. The Roppongi Crossing show at the Mori was the worst example of this, but I did not even go to see the ‘Space for your future’ show at the Musem of Contemporary Art Tokyo, as Karen had the catalogue and it looked just too annoying for me.

Again wierdly (for such a giant city) bumped into Adam at the Roppongi Crossing show and we had a juice in the Mori tower lounge looking over the city.

which never ends it seems. Such a dense moss of buildings and people, but I didnt feel scared or depressed the whole time I was there. Tokyo is really very clean and so alive. I love how people can keep their bonzai on the street outside their house.

In Tokyo I went into starbucks for the first time, here is a view of Shibuya station from the window of that establishment.

I visited Tokyo for the first time in the week leading upto christmas. Out of some sort of perversity or desire for solitude I took a ferry from Kitakyushu to Tokyo - 36 hours. The ferry was great, like a floating roadside truckstop, with comfy carpeted rooms to sleep in, a basic japanese canteen, many vending machines and the ultimate luxury of a cento bath. the weather was sunny for december and i spent most of my time outside reading Alasdair Grey’s ‘Lanark’, one man eager for english practice asked me if it was a bible.

I had a bath around sunset one night, and had the whole room to myself. The bathroom was tiled in peach and had a large window with rounded corners set over the bath. Sitting in hot water, watching the grey waves and a soft sunset, paradise.