Over the past few months, I’ve become dissatisfied with the place photography occupies in my life. For some people, uploading their pictures to Flickr and getting a few “Nice capture!”-like comments has become a kind of daily fix. But the whole exercise feels increasingly Sisyphean these days; what is it all for? Galleries? Books? The latter brings to mind those lonely souls I met in Shinjuku, sitting in small rented rooms, surrounded by expensive prints, waiting for someone to come in and sign the little book by the door. As for books, it’s easy enough to print up something on blurb.com, but what then? What does it mean when there are tens of thousands of such books coming out every month? Granted, I know nothing of marketing or promotion; both are anathemas to me. I don’t want to be A Professional Photographer per se, as that seems to imply wearing fugly vests, fussing around with lights and “shoots”, worrying about clients and what they think and generally ruining any enjoyment I get from making my own pictures because I would be too busy taking pictures for other people all the time.

But coming back to Flickr: if I were to take the gallery/book/whatever route, would that make Flickr extraneous? I’ve always found the usefulness of hard-to-navigate flash-based websites like johndoeimages.com or sallysomeonephotography.net questionable at best; what semblance of professionalism they might once have had has been negated by their ubiquity, and the flickr community has been like a built-in audience. However, over the past couple of years, The Great Unwashed Masses with their Great Unwashed Photographs of their Great Unwashed Spawn and/or Great Perhaps-washed Pets have taken over (he said snobbily as he took a sip of Earl Grey tea, his pinky waving in the air), and the quality in general has suffered since Yahoo acquired the site. Nowhere is this more starkly apparent than in the “Explore” pages, where the truly inspiring shots of yore have been eschewed for the most part in favor of the usual out-of-focus-flower-held-by-child-at-sunset shots that Italian people seem to enjoy so much.

These developments as well as my own have changed the dynamic I’ve felt with the site; it no longer gives me as much of what I want as it used to. Friends of mine have told me, even begged me to start publishing photography books, while warning me that if I put the shots up on flickr, they’d be “exposed” and useless for further publication. But what is the alternative? I honestly don’t know. It is a ridiculous situation, all of this thinking and whining about a subject I don’t particularly enjoy thinking and whining about. Photography should be something one simply enjoys, like movies or food or travel, not something to be dissected and endlessly debated on Internet forums. And yet, here we are.

It was raining hard outside my hotel room window when I got up yesterday, my view of Shinjuku’s roofline murky and gray. I didn’t want to spend hours on a plane with soggy feet, so I stuffed some extra socks and jeans in my backpack and figured out which subway route would give me the least time out in the weather. After marking “excellent” on every box on the hotel survey form, I checked out and set out in the rain with my tiny umbrella to the Shinjuku Higashi Station’s Oedo line, which took me to Ueno-Okakimachi Station. I suspected there might be a convenient underground passageway to the Kesei Line Station, and there was, though the signage wasn’t clear.

After I got my Skyliner ticket, I took the short escalator up to street level, just to be on the streets of the city one more time. I toyed with the idea of going across the street to have one more session of playing with the EP1s and GF1s on display at the camera store, but I only had ten minutes; in any case, I think I’ve gotten a sufficient feel for those cameras.

This is the second time it’s been raining as I’ve travelled on the Skyliner (yes, I managed to get the right train this time) to Narita. I got a window seat behind a man whose ears bent outward to accomodate a surprisingly thick neck. The suburbs lasted a long time but eventually gave way to open countryside and rice fields. The trees are really beginning to change and should be gorgeous in a couple of weeks. I suppose the timing wasn’t ideal for that, but tree-leaf photos aren’t exactly my forte anyway.

The airport was a breeze: after checking in, I went upstairs to have a leisurely lunch of soba and tempura at a restaurant overlooking the wet runway and forlorn-looking planes. Then customs and immigration, also very quick, though taking off all my bling for the scanners and then putting it back on took a while. The news on the TV in the departure lounge was all about the capture the night before of a killer who had made minor changes to his appearance. The case was being discussed by panels on TV every time I turned it on over the past week.

As I sat waiting for the passengers to finish boarding so I could get on without waiting in line, I thought that I might have stayed an extra day or so, just to see the neighborhood temple ceremony and attend the opening of flickr user Modern Classic’s new bookstore. But I was sure that seats would have been hard to get, and there’s always next time. Even after my third trip, large parts of Tokyo and its surroundings remain to be explored if I want to make another trip. Although I could read all the signs on this trip, I really should increase my spoken Japanese beyond just a few phrases.

On the plane, the moment I sat down next to a middle-aged Western man dressed in black, he called for the stewardess and arranged for another seat. I’m pretty sure I don’t smell, so it must have been some aspect of my appearance. Either that or he was one of my tails and didn’t want to get too close. In any case, I was glad to have the extra room during the flight, which was 73% less turbulant than the last one.

Once again, customs and immigration at Taoyuan Airport was quick; I don’t think I broke step to wait at all before getting my luggage from the carousel. After 10 days in a tiny hotel room, the Water Curtain Cave feels enormous, if a bit messy after my hurried departure preparations.

So that’s it, then. Hope you enjoyed the trip, and we now return to our regularly scheduled infreqent/sporadic blogging of life in general.

I took the JR to Nippori this morning, walking up the hill to the west side of the station to find the “Suzuki” guesthouse. Overlooking the rail station is convenient and all, but the constant trains and announcements must get really irritating.

Beyond the Suzuki is a huge cemetery, with many famous dead people. But I wasn’t there to see dead people, famous or not. I’d read that the area around there had more or less remained as it was decades ago, and I wanted to get a glimpse of old Tokyo. So I walked past the orderly stones and into the surrounding neighborhoods. I wondered what kind of people generally live next to graveyards in Japan, are they hyper-religious or completely non-religious? Also, how does it affect housing prices?

I came upon an empty lot, empty except for a couple of newly planted trees and surrounded by a fence with signs reading “Feel Wood.” Another foreigner, wearing all black, walked along behind me for a bit.

I proceeded down the hill and turned into an alley that zigzagged every few meters. Hardly anyone was around. Eventually I made it to Ueno Park, where old men sat on benches and fed the ducks, which swam through the rushes slurping the water.

Lunch was very nice tempura and sushi in limited quantities at a traditional Japanese place under the railway tracks, my meal interrupted occasionally by the rumbling of a train going overhead and shaking the dark wooden furniture. Outside, I noticed the same foreigner in black walking by. Does he read this blog?

After lunch I took the subway to Roppongi. The last time I was there it was in a snowstorm, and after becoming bored with the mall I trudged around the area in the snow before getting tired of it. Now it was a completely different scene, warmer and livelier with crowds of people, including many foreigners, on the streets. I walked through the area depicted in my home computer’s wallpaper, taking in the details, and then through some of the areas I’d wanted to see before but couldn’t due to the weather. The area is hilly, with slopes and dips in the roads that I miss in the flatness of Taipei.

I took the ear-popping elevator up to the top of Mori Tower, which was fogged in last time, to take in the 360-degree view. It was a hazy view, alas, but as the city’s lights came on, it improved quite a bit. It was strange looking at what was basically the wallpaper on my computer, and being able to think, “I’ll go down there in a minute and look around.”

As I walked around taking photos and video, I overheard a couple of mainland Chinese guys wondering aloud what the “H” on a helicopter pad meant. I told them, and they complimented my “Hanyu”.

“I’m Taiwanese, actually,” I said. That was the end of that conversation.

I was wondering what the people using their flashes were thinking, exactly, when I noticed the same foreigner in black walking around as well. This was getting positively weird. It was either coincidence or a really bad tail. In either case, there wasn’t anything to do, so I just kept ignoring him.

After about an hour, I left, satisfied that I’d managed to capture the scene well enough. I walked back down to the area in my wallpaper, this image, I believe, and just wallowed in the fact of actually being there.

When I was in the tower, I noted a couple of places where the freeway overpasses met in giant intersections, so I headed towards one of them to take pictures. After dinner at a cafe, I headed through a lengthy subway connecting passage, buying a hat on the way; Louis and I have noted that many photographers in Tokyo wear what he calls “character hats”, and I found one that matches the color of my Ramblers’ suit.

The second giant intersection, located over a canal, was partially under construction, but I managed to get some shots anyway. Afterwards I happened across a cool little neighborhood, full of cafes and restaurants, parks, squares and tree-lined streets where someone had parked an ancient baby-blue Porsche. Every third person seemed to be a foreigner of some kind. A wonderful smell turned out to be emitting from an old car with a wood-burning stove in the back, suspiciously near the gas tank, I though. But the driver, who was moaning a chant through a loudspeaker, was selling baked yams. I would have bought some, but after I took his picture he drove away.

I “borrowed” some wifi from a cafe and uploaded a couple of pictures from my phone before calling Louis and arranging to meet him at Yoyogi Station. After that, we went to a “photo bar” in a student-dominated area. The pictures on the wall were of a certain “concept art” type that I feel inhabits a kind of “uncanny valley” between realistic and abstract photography. The owner gave us some snacks and we drank wine while bitching about concept art.

Before we knew it, it was after midnight, and rain was pounding down outside. Louis got a loaner umbrella from the bar, and I had a tiny fold-up job in my backpack that did little to keep me from getting wet. We said good-bye on the platform at Shinjuku, and I managed to find my way back to the hotel without getting completely soaked. The crows seem to love the rain; they’re cawing louder than ever in the downpour outside as I type this.

Tomorrow I’m heading back to Taipei. I’d like to stay and see more, but I feel I’ve gotten a little better handle on this place than I had before.

I walked through the brilliant streets this morning to the big Shinjuku JR Station, which, with the smells of restaurants starting up and the rush of passengers on their way to work, reminded me somehow of the first day of elementary school. I was planning on taking the Shonan Line out to Yokohama, but it was down, so I took a train to Tokyo Station and switched there. Other trains ran parallel to ours, and I wondered if they ever race.

At Yokohama Station, I got directions from a friendly garbage collector who spoke remarkably good English, before heading out towards what I hoped was the harbor. As I crossed a bridge over a canal I was surprised to see huge grey fish in the water. They swarmed wherever I paused to look over the railing, their mouths gaping; I suppose people must feed them.

After an interminably long walk along a highway, I eventually reached the Nihon Maru, a sailing boat. It was closed. I should have realized this earlier, but everything is closed on Mondays here. I sat on a bench by the ship, soaking in the sun and watching crewmen climb the ship’s rigging.

Downtown Yohohama was just across another bridge, and I was pleasantly surprised to find tree-lined streets, sidewalk cafes and restored old buildings there. The pavement was spattered with either green or red dots, making a nice effect. I stopped for lunch at a sandwich shop, watching people on the sidewalk as I ate. Artists sat around the older buildings, sketching them on pads of paper. It seems to me that elderly people in Japan have much more taste in fashion than in most countries. It’s cool that the old guys here dress, if not always as snappily as they did when they were young, at least just as hip as anyone else.

The leaves on the trees in the city are beginning to turn; in a week or two they should be brilliant. I came too soon, I suppose. That’s ok, though; leaves are not my forte.

The weather was much warmer, and I didn’t even need my jacket after noon. I walked back to the harbor and along it until I came to the Hikawa Maru, an old ship that began service in the 30’s, served as a hospital ship during WWII, and made the Kessel run in less than…I mean, it did the Seattle run all the way up to 1961, when it was docked permanently at Yokohama. It, too was closed, which is too bad; I would have liked to tour it.

Instead I went up the requisite tower and took some pictures. It was hazy, so the views weren’t terribly good. Then I just walked around the city, including Chinatown, which reminds a bit of the EPCOT version if it were done by the Japanese.

After night fell, I went back to the tower, where the view was much nicer, the whole city and harbor lit up. I helped a couple take a picture without using the flash after they couldn’t figure out what was going wrong with their pictures taken with a Ricoh CX. The tower sways noticably in the wind; I’d hate to be up there during an earthquake.

Yokohama’s a very cool place; laid-back, yet modern, with a great downtown area and just a subway ride from Tokyo. I can see why people like it so much.

Tomorrow’s my last full day in Tokyo this time around. I’m thinking of walking from Nippori to Ueno, and then Roppongi and the Mori Tower. Got to get those twinkling city light shots.

I slept in this morning, puttering around my room and posting the previous day’s journal before finally heading out at noon. This time I walked around the other side of the park, through the alleys that skirt the edges, past old wooden houses along dead-end lanes. The weather was cloudy gray, and hardly anyone was around. I thought about Louis’ opinion that Taiwan is both Japan’s past and its future; the shiny veneer that I found so antiseptic when I first visited Tokyo in 1991 has worn off. It seems much more used and lived in now, closer to Taipei in feel than before.

I’d told Louis that I’d meet him at Sendagaya Station again, as I couldn’t remember where the cafe was, but as I walked I recalled various landmarks, and I got close enough that I could call from a payphone, and he walked out to meet me. Back inside, he introduced me to the photographer whose book Louis had sent me last year. The older man was holding a Ricoh GR1 and seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere else. “I like your photography,” I told his back as he left. Louis said one of the guys at the next table was the lead singer of a famous Japanese band that I had never heard of; I guess that cafe is popular among famous people. I had lunch there, chicken noodles and rice with some delicious soup. The waitress was very talkative; she told me she had visited Taipei once.

After lunch we walked towards Shibuya, which Louis doesn’t particularly like. “Couldn’t you just stand here and take a book’s worth of street photography?” I asked him, but he pooh-poohed the idea as too easy, basically shooting fish in a barrel.

“It’s almost as bad as Harajuku,” he said. I figure I’d do it, but I’d probably get tired of it quickly enough. The light was nice, though. At one point we passed a forlorn-looking man sitting at a desk in an empty lot on a deserted alley, presumably waiting for a passerby to inquire about the property, even though it seemed nobody was around.

We walked towards Ebisu, through alleys lined with former used clothing shops that had closed. One place sold the very same Olympus Pen that we’d seen at the flea market for a substantially greater price. The whole area became very expensive looking, with glass-walled premium shops. As we passed an art gallery/bruncheon crowd of fashionable women nibbling snacks while surrounded by paintings/photos of dancers, I burst out in a scathing monologue mocking the art patrons. “Are you speaking into a microphone?” Louis asked.

We crossed a pedestrian bridge, from which Louis shot a series of photographs of three motorcycle policemen standing below, and then down to another neighborhood with a deep canal running through it. “Nice,” I said. “It doesn’t even smell.”

It was getting dark, and I was getting tired, so I was grateful when we stopped for some pie and drinks at a cafe open to the sidewalk. My apple pie and ice cream was delicious, and the orange/mango smoothie just the thing after a long walk. Louis had to go work on some snags in his upcoming book, so I took the train back to Shinjuku, from where I called Yas, who was out putting up flyers for his upcoming film festival. We arranged to meet at the Alta screen at ten, so I walked around the area taking a few pictures and just enjoying the atmosphere. I paid yet another visit to the Yodobashi camera store, this time playing with the Sigma DP2, which, while faster than the DP1, is still finicky and slow.

Yas was facing another long night of editing, so he had coffee at a crowded Doutor while I drank fruit juice. We talked about perhaps cooperating on a project in the future, probably a short film, and about directors in Japan and Taiwan. He said he might be able to find the Japanese film I worked on in 1994-5 under Edward Yang; he thinks it’s Director Hayashi Kaizo’s third detective film. I’ve never seen the finished product and would like to see how it turned out.

Yas hates Shibuya as much as Louis, if not more so. “It’s full of stupid kids,” he told me. “I wouldn’t go there at all if there weren’t some good independent theaters there.”

I took another route back to the hotel than I usually do, this time straying a bit too far into the hustler zone. Tall black men walked with me, trying to hand me cards for bars with scantily clad Japanese women on them. Luckily, my hotel is far enough away from that area; I don’t think I’ll be going there again.

Actually, my hotel, the Shinjuku Urban, has been great; I love the smell of coffee and creme in the plush-red carpeted hallways, the 60’s feel and the convenient location between several subway lines and near the Shinjuku JR. I would definitely recommend it.

Tomorrow is Monday, and everyone is going back to work. I’m thinking I might go to Yokohama and Roppongi if the weather’s nice.

The remaining donut in the box had gone stale yesterday morning when I got up, so I threw it out. That’s the last time I do the Krispy Kreme box thing, I think.

It was Saturday, and I was meeting Louis near his house at Sendagaya Station, on the other side of the park. It was a fine day, and I decided to walk along the borders of the green space, which turned out to be hidden in shadows and lined with poorer, more decrepit houses. Apparently being on the park isn’t much a draw here. Some of the older wooden structures looked exactly like ones in Taiwan that have been left to fall apart over the course of decades.

I paused under the railway bridges, waiting for people to pass under the light, and then proceeded to the station, where an Italian soccer team was trying to take taxis somewhere. Louis met me on his vintage fixed-gear bicycle, and we walked through his neighborhood, which is nice and kind of bohemian in an understated way. Lots of tree-lined streets and funky shops.

We had lunch at a corner diner called One’s Diner, straight out of the 50’s including all the chrome, sparkly creme seats, straw and napkin dispensers made out of metal, checkered floor wraparound bar. Two guys with hats, real hats, not baseball caps, were sitting in a booth taking pictures with a GRD3. The light streaming in through the windows was very nice, and Louis said he had taken many a picture of people inside and outside the place over the years he had been going there. I wasn’t very hungry, but the kitchen smelled so good I decided to have a hamburger. It was quite good, especially the toasted bun, but I’m not sure if the lovely ambiance and the afternoon sunlight across my plate were a major part of the flavor.

Louis kept bumping into people he knew; it’s clear that he’s made inroads into this community. One of his neighbors, a woman who works in publishing, came in and sat down with us. She recently bought a house and was worried about the fact that it is one of those many buildings that is open parking on the first floor; in her view it was more dangerous “to be on stilts” in an earthquake. Curiously, she seemed to think that more buildings in Taiwan were built in such a fashion, but I can only assume she was talking about the open corridor on the first floor most buildings have there. We talked about the likelihood of a coming e-book revolution, obviously a potential threat to the publishing industry’s traditional model.

After lunch Louis took me to a local flea market, held in what looked like a large parking lot but was in fact, he told me, the space where residents fled to after the 1923 earthquake. One of the original trees still survives. The items for sale were interesting and stylish, and, Louis said, no longer as cheap as they were before more “professional” people got into the game. Lots of old cameras, none working very well and no Leicas, alas. I picked up a pocket flask, and Louis got a leather jacket. One old guy was sitting on the sill of his van playing a very good slide guitar.

Prices dove as 3pm, or closing time approached; we walked over to a nice cafe in a what was someone’s parking level, called Kimbo, and then visited a photo book store. We passed what I thought was a nice little apartment complex that Louis said developers wanted to tear down, with only a few residents still there.

Then it was back towards the station to take a train to Ochanomizu Station, where I had the Gorilla Curry last time, so I could look for a gold mouthpiece for my pocket trumpet. Apparently it’s the musical instrument district, with several shops to choose from. I browsed a couple of stores, and their offerings were quite comprehensive. They let me try all the mouthpieces I wanted, on a pocket trumpet no less, and I eventually found a Bach 5B that seemed to fit the bill. Hopefully it will feel the same on my Jupiter.

Louis had to go to a party at 5, and I was going to meet my film school friend Yas at Asagaya at 7. After Louis left, I’d thought I would walk around the area, but as night fell, I suddenly felt tired, so I just sat on the steps of the station and watched crowds of people bustling by on their way into the station until 6, when I joined them on a JR train headed for the suburbs.

Yas, also with his bicycle, met me at Asagaya station. It was cold out now, and I regretted not going back to the hotel to fetch a warmer jacket. We walked to his movie paraphernalia shop, WayWest, and he filled me in on what he’s been doing in the couple of years since we last met, the projects he’s been working on, his job teaching actors, etc.

Dinner was at a Turkish family-run restaurant near the station, featuring lamb/beef kabab, dumplings, vegetable pie and other interesting dishes. Yas says I should do a project with him in Tokyo, but I’m not sure how that would work. I’ve always been just visiting, passing through. To do a project I’d have to take an extended leave of some kind. Still, it’s an interesting proposition.

I was bushed by the time got back to the hotel, so I decided to just crash and leave the journal writing for this morning. It’s Sunday, and the weather’s nice, if a bit cloudy.

The sun was out again this morning. My destination was the JCII camera museum near the Imperial Palace park. I got off the subway at Kudanshita and walked through the mostly deserted neighborhood, taking pictures of construction crews lifting beams in reflected light, to find the small museum in a basement. Inside, hundreds of cameras, all laid out by date starting in 1908 or so, were housed in glass cases. Obviously there have been a lot more cameras released in the past few years, but they did a pretty good job even though they left out my first camera, the Pentax K1000. They had most of the others, though. They also had some 3D viewers set up for a handful of pictures. It was eerie to see what appeared to be a real-life scene, and yet with nobody in them moving.

The best part of the museum was a line of old cameras laid out on a table by the window, cameras that you could pick up, operate and play with. But aside from that, there wasn’t much else to do, so I went for lunch at a cafe where a strange woman who reeked of urine was standing uncertainly in the aisle and making strange, furtive motions, fingering her purse until the staff asked her just what she needed. She apologized and left. Apparently I had just witnessed the Japanese version of an altercation with a crazy person.

Then I left to walk around the area. Remember when I was saying that there’s always something interesting just around the corner in Tokyo? This area is an exception. It’s all diplomatic quarters and faceless corporate headquarters. After half an hour I felt frustrated and bored with the place, so I walked along the moat back to the subway and took it to Asakusa to take a river cruise. I hadn’t been on the silver modern one, so I bought a ticket for a 3:20pm one-way cruise to Odaiba, using the intervening time to walk around the rather industrial neighborhood on the other side of the Sumida River, near the Giant Golden Turd on the Asahi Beer building. There I found a small group of photographers waiting on a bridge over a canal and under a train bridge, apparently waiting for a certain kind of train to pass so that they could take pictures of it.

The silvery bulbous boat arrived, and we got on to find an equally fancy interior, all wood and white beams. After all of the walking I’ve been doing, it was good to just sit and watch the city go by. We arrived at Odaiba just in time to watch the sun set over the city skyline across the bay. I had taken off my jacket for the first time since I arrived earlier in the day, as it was actually warm, but now it cooled off quickly. I walked around Odaiba a bit, but it is not a real place. Nobody lives there; I find it utterly soulless. I do enjoy the monorail that connects it to downtown, however. I ended up a Shinbashi, recalling on my last trip that it was snowing as I did so. This time the weather was fine, so I decided to take a stroll up the Ginza and take in the sights. I stopped by the Apple Store to check out the new Magic Mouse, which looks like it could take a lot of getting used to, and the new iMacs, which are gorgeous. I walked up the rest of the strip, pausing to take some pictures of a tiny wooden hut amongst the tall glass buildings, with a samurai outfit in the window.

Dinner was mediore curry rice at a ticket restaurant, and then I caught the subway at the fancy rose-colored Ginza Station to Ueno, where I paid Big Gym a visit and got some new comics. Just for the hell of it, I checked out the hotel I stayed at last time. There’s a new building next to it; my old view is gone. Seeing it now, I’m glad I didn’t decided to stay there again; my hotel here in Shinjuku is much nicer and more convenient.

I walked up to the Yobodashi camera store to do yet more fiddling around with the EP1 and GF1, in the light of Olympus’ announcement of the EP2, which is basically an EP1 painted black and with an EV connector and focus tracking. Despite my love for the EP1’s shape and feel, especially the shutter, the GF1 simply trounces it in reaction times.

Tomorrow is Saturday, and I’m going to meet Louis for lunch in his neighborhood. Other than that: no plans as usual. We’ll see. The doughnuts have already gone stale, which is just as well; I think I’ve outgrown such sugary treats.

The cloudy weather today gave the city a different character, more somber and business-like. The colors were muted, the shadows gone. I walked eastwards from my hotel this morning, with no particular destination in mind. I came across a temple with a series of old traditional buildings in a line facing a large tree, under which pigeons gathered to look for food. I continued through the alleys until I lost track of my direction. Fortunately my phone has a compass, and I managed to circle around and head back. At one point I was taking a shot of some piping on a building’s side when I suddenly felt tired of my photography. I blame the weather. And my photography.

Louis showed up at noon, and we headed out to visit some photo galleries in the area. Apparently there are many, which surprised me. Before that, however, we had some delicious pasta at an Italian restaurant on the park. Down the alley, some window washers were hanging off the side of a tall glass building, and we got many shots of them on their way down. One of them even asked Louis if it was alright to drop the final few feet.

The galleries ranged from pleasing landscapes and nature shots to street photography and specialized subjects. Some was very nice; most of it was mediocre. Apparently these photographers just hang out in the small rented rooms all day, just waiting for someone to show up, browse the photos on the wall for a few minutes, perhaps ask a question, sign the book and leave. It all felt a little desperate. But that’s probably because I’ve never done it. Louis bumped into a woman photographer he knew at one of the galleries, talking with her while I hastily attempted to hide the torn cover of a Korean boxer book I’d just mangled. In another gallery, water rushed periodically through the pipes on the ceiling, creating the most wonderfully peaceful sound. The works there featured boxers who work part-time while spending their extra time on their craft. The artist’s previous work was on people who don’t have steady jobs. He was one of this demographic himself, he told us, as I thought was pretty obvious. His last book consisted of close-up photos of these individuals facing long shots of them in crowds. Louis said I should invite him to Taiwan, so we exchanged cards. He laughed at the Chinese title “Renegade Province” and pronounced my name in Japanese, “Hayashi Mijiyaki”.

As the Japanese have such a fondness for cameras, it seems to me that Tokyo must be one of the most-photographed cities in the world. Yet the work produced seems all the same. It got me thinking about the culture here, whether the prevalence of technical excellence has made it such a standard that the only direction remaining to explore is that of abstraction, and even that seems done in a rote fashion most of the time. But perhaps I am just gleaning the wrong parts of the situation; I can’t really pretend to understand a place I’ve spent so little time in.

Louis had to go to work, so he left me on the bridge over the tracks at Shinjuku Station, pointing me to a nearby Krispy Kreme, where there was hardly any line. The machines inside weren’t running full tilt, as the ones at the first store had been on my last visit. Perhaps the Japanese are getting over the donut craze. I got a dozen donuts in a box and walked back over the bridge, construction workers giving me the victory sign as I pointed my camera at the skyline above their helmets. My ankles and feet were sore from all the walking, so I went back to the hotel for rest up a bit before heading out again.

The desk clerk told me about a temple festival that’s happening on the 11th, the day I leave. Unfortunately I won’t be able to see it unless I extend my visit. I have to admit I’m tempted; so far I’ve had a great time, and the city is just as fascinating as it was last time.

Louis told me about a book party being held near Omote-sando, so I took the express train there and got directions from a policeman. Japanese directions are kind of bizarre, consisting of how many streets in, how many alleys in, etc. However, they don’t seem to believe in address plates. There isn’t any standard, and it’s apparently up to the owner whether or not they want to put them up or not. I got directions from three different people, the last one just across the street from the place, so I was rather late in arriving.

The book in question is full of photographs by an Italian photographer, Leonardo Pellegatta, of the circus. The name of the small volume is “Il Circo”, and Pellegatta published it himself via a Japanese service. The photos are very nice, the lighting and composition exuding a feeling of the old circuses. The books were laid out on the table, and the remains of wine and snacks littered the tables on the balcony outside the small second-story shop. The photographer, a youngish man with frizzy hair and wearing a scarf, was paying most of his attention to the young Japanese women in attendence, but I managed to get a few questions in in between girls. He told me that the book was small because “It is a small book,” but I’m guessing the costs were prohibitive. That’s too bad, because the photos that he had printed up larger for the show were impressive. He said he used a 6×6 Rollei loaded with black-and-white film.

“Why did you choose black and white for such a colorful subject?” I asked. He said that he wanted to express that the circus was “the gold dust on the dirt”, that it was a veneer of dreams and illusion just managing to cover a bleak and dangerous world.

As I was late, things were winding down, and I got the sense that I should go. Pellegatta thanked me for coming, and I thanked him “for not being mediocre” as I had browsed some of the photo books at the shop and came to the conclusion that many photographers mistake having an overall theme with “taking the same picture over and over again.”

As I walked back towards the subway station by the famous Prada building, singing “Prada store, Prada store…”, I noticed a taxi stopped at a green light. The driver got out of his car and walked to the taxi behind him, and they had a conversation. I thought they might be friends, but I noticed that the rent-a-cops at the Prada store were staring, alert, as it they smelled something on fire. The conversation stopped, the first taxi driver folded the other’s rear-view mirror back, and he walked back to his car and drove off. Apparently I’d just witnessed the Japanese version of a fight between taxi drivers. I suppose I’m just used to the shouting/crowbars/rioting that the same occasion features in Taiwan.

I took some back alleys on my way back, noting an entirely glass house for rent. I’ve also noticed that most scooters here only have one seat; is having a passenger illegal? The scooters look much better; some of those designs would sell like hotcakes in Taiwan, but I suppose they keep the best for themselves.

I’ve done a lot of walking over the past few days, and it might be time to fill up that small-yet-deep bathtub for a good long soak. Good night!

There were some clouds in the sky when I got up this morning, but they were gone by the time I made my way outside around 10am. I walked to a nearby free wifi spot I’d found online to upload a rather mediocre picture from my phone to flickr to let everyone there know I am in Tokyo (not that they particularly care, but I thought I’d do it anyway). Then I walked around the neighborhood for a while, ending up at a nearby shrine that was empty except for a man feeding some stray cats. Apparently Japanese love cats, as there seems to be a lot of well-fed strays around. The light streaming though the canopy of trees surrounding the temple and its reflection in a modern glass-sided building just behind it made for some interesting shots. Old ads were tacked on the billboard out front, including some WWII-era posters and an ad for a camera that looked almost exactly like the new Leica X1. When I was more or less done I put my hands together to thank the god in residence for the pictures, and a shiver went down my spine.

Exploring more alleys nearby, I came across three other photographers who were apparently taking pictures of power lines. I never know what to do when encountering other photographers, a situation that is increasingly likely as just about everyone is a photographer these days. Usually I just ignore them. As I was taking some pictures of some laundry hanging out to dry, a woman poked out of a Korean shop across the street and asked me if I was taking pictures of the cat. At least, that’s what I assumed she was asking, as the only word I understood was “neko” or cat. She could have been saying, “Watch out for the killer cat,” I suppose. Some people, I noticed, put water bottles on top of the walls around their houses. Thief detection device? For thirsty passersby? Ghost offering? I have no idea.

Louis showed up at my hotel at noon as promised, and he took me to a series of tiny alleys nearby that I’d missed. All the shops were closed, but Louis said it used to be a popular evening watering spot for local artists and photographers. We passed what looked like some kind of government building with a guard outside the door, but when I asked what it was, Louis told me it was a training center for comedians. “That’s hilarious!” I said, and promptly took a picture of the guard. Louis said that the guard was there to keep fans out, but it seems to me that if a comedian is already that famous, what does he or she need to train for?

We walked though central Shinjuku to the tall building that houses the Nikon Center, on the 28th floor. The views of the city are pretty nice, and there is a gallery inside as well. Today’s show featured the theme of dead and dying pigs, or Pigs In Dire Straits. Another one featured mostly night photography with at most one or two decent shots, IMHO.

We went back to the shops and fooled around with M43 cameras. Louis has a GF1 with the 14-45 kit lens, and he swears by it. I have to admit that it’s a nice little camera. The second-hand camera shops we visited had a lot of Olympus EP1s, apparently abandoned for GF1’s. It must be frustrating for Olympus, but nobody forced them to release a camera with sub-par focusing and a low-res screen, no matter how nice it is to hold and shoot with.

Lunch was had at a fried pork chop place on the second floor. The line up the stairs moved quickly, and soon we were sitting cross-legged at a table across from a bear in a business suit who spoke in an uncharacteristly high voice when he asked for more miso soup. My foot fell asleep as we ate due to the seating position, and I had to be careful coming down the steep stairway after the meal lest I bowl over the board of directors that were coming up the stairs at the time.

We walked around the station, taking pictures of commuters in the rich afternoon light. Louis hit the jackpot when he came across a repairment on a ladder, his entire upper body engulfed by the ceiling, but just at that moment he ran out of memory and had to delete photos to make room. After failing to track down interesting reflected light from the nearby high office buildings of West Shinjuku, we looked at some bag stores, as I had mentioned getting a bag that looks a little less like a camera bag, but I didn’t really see anything that I liked that much.

We visited an art gallery on the fourth floor, mainly for the use of the restrooms, puffing after the climb up the stairs there. The photographer of the single photo exhibit, an older Japanese man, sat forlornly by the door as a few people browsed his shots, which ranged from black-and-white film prints from the 80’s to digital color prints starting in 2004. Louis asked him what camera he used, and he produced a list. Surprisingly, all of his film cameras were Canons, and when he switched to digital, he only used Nikons, culminating in a D200. I wondered if he thought Nikon did digital better, while Canon did film cameras better, but he explained that he had never gotten anywhere with the Canon Club, but after he joined the Nikon Club he got more exposure and status. What a strange reason to pick a camera, I thought, not mentioning my opinion that his earlier b/w work was better than the later color photos.

We found a coffee shop down near the subway station and chatted for a while in the “non-smoking section” as we downed a chocolate float (Louis) and a hot apple rind tea (me). One of the few areas where Japan is behind the rest of the world is its attitude towards smoking in public places like restaurants.

Louis had to go to his job as a photo editor at a newspaper, as he works the night shift and the sun was setting. I decided to go back up to the Nikon Center and take shots of the city as the lights came on. The harsh, bright lighting of the hallways made this a difficult task. Someone should invest a flexible hood to put on lenses just for taking pictures out of windows at various angles. Or maybe someone has.

All that was left of the day was a faint glow on the horizon as I continued west, through the park, and then back around to the station area, where I had some dinner before returning to the little alleys Louis had shown me this morning. By this time the little shops were open and the place had come alive, little bars and shops ingeniously filling the tiniest of spaces. I hesitated to take shots of the people within, as it just didn’t feel right, but I took shots of the alleys themselves. At one point an older man leaned out of an upstairs window to snap shots of passersby with his old Rollei. He looked familiar, and I took some shots of him, but the loud clack of the Invincible-yet-sadly-not-Invisible Rabbit alerted him to my presence, and he withdrew. A moment later I saw murky faces staring out at me from the closed window.

A ring around the moon usually means rain is coming, but I could be wrong. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

The weather was much improved when I woke up this morning, a cold yet cloudless blue sky greeting me when I set out for Yotsuya Station. I’d worked out on the map that it was the closet station to the New Otani Hotel, which was featured as the Osato Corporation HQ in the film You Only Live Twice. In the film, Sean Connery as James Bond infiltrates and then escapes the building twice.

I got off at Yotsuya and made my way along a forest path on a ridge overlooking athletic fields filled with shouting baseball players. On the other side a school was holding some kind of promotional event. It reminded me not a little of Lexington, Virginia, actually.

The path led me almost exactly to the hotel, which has obviously been completely remodeled. The famous shape is the same, however, and I walked up and down the drive where Connery ran up and down, no doubt for several takes. All of this happened years before I was born, but it’s still cool as hell. I wonder if the doorman is used to random foreigners walking up and down that particular piece of pavement. He was sneezing; I should have gone up to him and said, “Mr. Osato believes in a healthy chest.”

After I’d had my fill of imagining being rescued by a Japanese woman in a white convertible Toyota 2000GT, I walked back up to the subway stop and poked around the nearby alleys. An old man was saying goodbye to his relatives on his brilliantly lit doorstop, and as I took some shots, he said in English “Small building!”

“Small building!” I repeated, and saluted my thanks for the picture. The light was so nice I was taking pictures of everything, probably far more than I should have. The alleys were almost deserted except for huge black crows lofting heavily about. I love Tokyo alleys; there seems to always be a little surprise, a nicely designed house or clever garage, just around each corner.

I took the subway out to Toyosu Station on the Kurakucho Line, near the harbor. Using Google Maps, I’d worked out just where my favorite Tokyo webcam is located. It’s a live feed from a high building across a meeting of four channels, so it wasn’t too hard to find on the map.

Just outside the station I had lunch at a Yoshinoya, just to see how it compares to the ones in Taipei. Verdict: the taste is the same, but the Japanese restaurant’s layout is more interesting, with the cashier in a little island in the middle of the bar.

It was tricky finding my way through the maze to the spot, and I found that the buildings I’d assumed were office buildings are actually residential blocks, with half of the residents airing out their quilts. Oddly, the river-facing apartments don’t seem to put much stock in the view, with high balcony walls.

I walked to a bridge and crossed, taking pictures of bicyclists and remembering to keep left to avoid being hit, and walked down the opposite bank. The water was filled with jellyfish, which surprised me. A couple of boys were fishing things out of the river, not fish or jellyfish, but what looked like pieces of garbage.

I walked back across the bridge and around towards the tall building that has the webcam in it, passing a wannabe tightrope walker scaring his girlfriend by walking on top of the sidewalk railings. The sun was getting low in the sky, even though it wasn’t even 4pm, and I took pictures of pedestrians’ shadows on various walls.

By the time I got to the tall building, the temperature had begun to drop again. I sat on the corner of the rivers, looking with my own eyes on the scene I’d seen so many times before on my office computer. Occasionally a boat would chug past. It was very peaceful.

The sun set at around 4:30 as I made my way back to the station, pausing on the bridge to take some more shots. I took refuge in a department store for a bit to look at the cameras there before taking the subway back to Shinjuku. On the way, I found that there was no transfer point at the stop I’d assumed there would be a transfer point, and I ended up taking the long way around the city. This was fine with me as at that point my feet were sore and I could use a good rest. I’d thought that travelling via subway at rush hour in Tokyo would be a nightmare, but there weren’t that many people at all.

Back in Shinjuku, I went straight upstairs to the Bic camera store, where I was surprised to find a young, blonde Swedish clerk asking me if I wanted any help. I was looking at the Panasonic GF1 and the Olympus EP1, which were arrayed side-by-side. I’d looked at the Canon S90 but it felt poorly put together and plastick next to the M43 cameras, plus the IQ is still that of a small-sensor camera. I have to say that, despite the Oly’s slower focus and bad screen, I do like the feel of it better than that of the Panny. It fits in my hand better, and the shutter thunks as solidly as a car door while the GF1’s raps harshly against the side. And the debate goes on.

Dinner was had at a little corner shop, egg pork chop on rice while listening to the mainland Chinese tourists sitting next to me. I was really bushed by this point, so I decided to come back to the hotel.

Tomorrow I’m having lunch with my photographer friend Louis. Other than that, I have no idea what I’ll be up to.