Monday 10 March 2014

Takadanobaba

I dropped in Takadanobaba. Baba is warm.
It felt homely. Clear blue winter skies let the sun hit a tiny kids-cats-playground. It was made for kids but is used by cats. On the fences were hanging signs borbidding people to abandon their pets, with drawing of crying cats being left in a cardboard. In the bushes, families of cats said hi as I walked them by.
I let the flat roof tops and drying laundry colouring the streets too small for a car to turn any corner fill my eyes, sat on a plastic giraffe. No kid around, but a well dressed middle aged-man holding his head in both hands between his knee sat on one of the benches, and a younger man smoking a cigarette looking at a wall. Everywhere in the world there are little parks hidden from main streets where people smoke looking inside their own head and cats lie peacefully in the shade and where the traffic can't be heard. I could have been on holiday in Lisbon. Or Barcelona. Or Tel Aviv. But that's not why it felt homely I think.
I felt the same in the south area of Kamata. There are streets, with lines and all, but really any normal car would get stuck within minutes (and I don't just mean if I am driving the car). The people walk slowly. The houses and architecture is wonky as can be. Succulents are left in pots right left and centre next to front doors, like I did as soon as I had a place I called home in the uk. It feels like summer even in the biting cold, maybe that's why. It has this atemporal feeling stuck in each different grays of the houses and the street concrete, and the quarter is cut from the rest of the city. It feels safe I guess.
Okubo and shin-Okubo had the same succulents on top of walls and pavement, and grand-pa's arching their backs, but the streets were straight. I really liked it too.
Makingahomeinmydreams-material.

Fact points:
-I dreamed of phones being stolen - guess I missed an opportunity to communicate.
-I also physically admitted that my Yashica is on holiday, and portrait-taking with it. But I still feel an incredible strength when I talk about Peace Faces and I know I will resume the project and make it real and complete to my eyes in the future.
-And I also thought about other things that I will talk with to my imaginary and non imaginary friends.
-Also I realised about a quarter of my salary goes into sending cards and letters and packages to friends (that's just for the physical card and stamps, not the stupid amount of black pens and stamping pads and stickers and ribbons and cat-tape). I think this a good way to spend money.
-Also, I have decided to try and dress a bit less like a 15 year-old boy and make an effort into looking at least half decent. I found made in Japan shoes AND trousers yesterday, the day my jeans decided to die and free my left knee so he could see the world too, and the day I couldn't physically take one more step because my shoes are just not made for my feet.
-I saw earphones (like, the little ones you put inside your ear, to listen to music, right?) for 25000 yens. That's about 174 euros. Is this mad or is this just me?
-I love recording sounds. I need a wind screen though.






Ahhhh on ne se fatigue pas de ces 'traductions wtf!'
For the English speakers, the text on the cup says (and oh my, this is an interesting translation exercices, translate into English a French text that was probably google-translated from Japanese (is this neologism going to send me straight to hell?) and convey the wtf feeling... hmmmm) :
The time as the milk is entirely in the coffee and he drinks is the most happy.


 It is now absolutely official that the coffee from the chain 'Tully's coffee' is THE YUMMIEST FLIPPING coffee ever. Their soy latte is just delicious.
 I have no idea how they made a face out of foam and coffee, but they did.



For Hazuki-san!!!


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