Politeness

Omikuji instructions at Sensō-ji, an ancient Buddhist temple in Asakusa:

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that Buddhist temples and I go back a long way.

Hasselblad

When I went to Ueno Kōen this weekend to see cherry blossoms, I wasn’t expecting to see something even more beautiful – for, truth be told, few things are more beautiful than cherry blossoms. But as I stood on the shore of Shinobazu-Ike trying to take photos of tree branches silhouetted against the setting sun (not with much success), I noticed a girl trying to shoot the same scene with a medium-format camera. Curious, I decided to take a closer look (at the camera, not the girl). And then I saw it was a Hasselblad. With a Carl Zeiss lens.

I had never seen a Hasselblad before, but I knew about the marque. It was my father who first told me about Hasselblad, before I was even old enough to use a camera, and he spoke of it in hushed, reverential tones. Not everyone is a fan of the waist-level finder which is a standard feature of the Hasselblad medium-format (the inimitable Cartier-Bresson, a lifelong Leica devotee, once said, “If the good Lord had wanted us to take photographs with a 6 by 6, he would have put eyes in our belly.”) But for many photographers, Hasselblad is the Rolls-Royce, the Moët & Chandon of medium-format cameras.

So I asked her if I could look through the viewfinder. She agreed immediately, and extended the camera towards me.

Now my Japanese, while good for asking for directions and ordering at restaurants, is not yet good enough to convey what, to me, the Hasselblad stands for. Still, what I saw at first did not impress me much – the image looked blurred, and the contrast wasn’t great. But then she adjusted the focus ring. The branches which I had been trying to photograph, dark and crisp against the orange sky, swam into focus. The world became a more beautiful place. And at that point, words became unnecessary.

Shunbun no Hi

Today is a public holiday in Japan – Shunbun no Hi or Spring Equinox Day, a day for the admiration of nature and living things. It is not yet time for Hanami, but in the parks and cemeteries of Tokyo, the first cherry blossoms have started to bloom. To celebrate Spring Equinox, here is a photo I took last Sunday at Hama-rikyū Onshi Teien, a surrealistically beautiful garden in the heart of Tokyo.

Bicycle Parking (OR Why I love the Japanese)

The Japanese have a reputation for being exceedingly particular. I appreciate this quality immensely; maybe I am a bit like that myself. But sometimes, they surpass themselves.

I keep my bicycle in our hotel’s bicycle parking lot, and they assigned me a number and a stand. I found this amusing, not least because there are few bicycles and plenty of empty stands. A few days back I got a letter from the front desk saying that my stand was broken, and requesting me to move my bike to another stand. I could see nothing wrong with my old stand, but I complied.

A few days later, I got another letter.


They also attached a copy of the previous letter “for my reference”.


And lastly, they attached a diagram.

Now perhaps you have been following the news for the last week (or perhaps, like me, you have been watching MTV), but Japan has not been going through the best of times. Thousands of lives were lost in the Tōhoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami, thousands more were left homeless. There are power shortages and fuel shortages. Fears of nuclear radiation are spreading across the nation. But Japanese hotel staff still find time to write detailed instructions – incredibly detailed instructions – for parking a bicycle.

Shibuya, Ginza

Oh. For a second I thought they were real.

These cats, however, were definitely real. Wearing frilly collars, they perched on a street sign while scores of people milled around taking photos. In Tokyo I see more inexplicable things every day than I have seen anywhere else.

Which is why I wander the streets quite a lot. Maybe one day I’ll run into the girl who loves to levitate.

8.9

OK, no more flippancy about earthquakes.

Eventful Days

There has seldom been a dull moment since I touched down in Tokyo. On Monday it snowed, taking everyone by surprise. Tuesday was my first day at work in the Tokyo office. Around lunchtime on Wednesday there was an earthquake. This occasioned much less surprise than the snow. And today, on the walls of Tameike-Sannō underground station, I saw what could only be a depiction of – of all things – the Taj Mahal.