Metropolis runs a Photo of the Week page in their print magazine, and maintains a database of images on their website, including pictures not printed in the magazine. The subject matter, like the style, varies, but at its best they publish some compelling images of life in Tokyo as seen through an expat’s lens.
Scroll down or “Find” Lee Chapman to view the — chilling — Photo of the Year for 2011, as voted by Metropolis readers.
NYTimes: “Niseko, Japan’s Own St. Moritz” by Ondine Cohane; with ccompanying slidehsow
11 years ago, when I last visited Niseko, the ski resort area outside of Sapporo on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido, the place still felt off the beaten path, for expats and tourists alike. I remember snowshoeing through a river valley, among rocks and trees mushroom-capped with some of that “champagne powder” snow that is making this part of Hokkaido internationally famous. At the time, Niseko was still a destination worth visiting for some peaceful communing with nature.
Hopefully, that’s still the case. However, in the ensuing 11 years, Niseko has apparently gone from a sleepy village to a world-class resort town. Australians and others are buying up vacation condos, and the area is now on the radar of the international jet set. And service infrastructure, ie restaurants for foodies, is arising to meet the needs of this new class of visitor.
Back in the days immediately following the March 11 Tohoku disaster, reports appeared in the media of what was quickly termed “The Tohoku 50″ to describe the nuclear power plane employees who stayed on-site and worked bravely, and perhaps suicidally, to limit the radiation crisis.
The workers who have been exposed to the Fukushima site now number some 18,000. In “Heroes of the Hot Zone” in the January, 2012 edition of Vanity Fair, long-term Japan resident writer Pico Iyer tails a controversial radiation specialist, Dr. Robert Gale, on his visit to the most affected region around the Fukushima Daiichi plant as he attempts to allay the fears of these workers. Iyer does an especially good job of capturing the voices of these anonymous men, and their sometimes complex motivations for putting themselves in harm’s way.
As part of their ongoing effort to raise awareness and money for the survivors of the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami (they were instrumental in organizing the recent trilogy Musicians for Earthquake and Tsunami Relief Vols. 1 -3, at What the Dickens in Tokyo, as well as doing volunteer work in the disaster area), my buddies The Complaints Department have released their video Walking Hand in Hand which includes their original – and catchy – post-punk tune, as well as images from the disaster area. Powerful stuff.
Here, in his own words, is the band’s lead singer Nate Gildart:
Some of you already know about the charity song my band has released on iTunes and Amazon MP3, with ALL PROCEEDS being donated to grassroots charities working in the Tohoku (northeastern) region of Japan. It can be sampled on YouTube, as well as on iTunes. If you like it, please download it and pass it on to friends and family. This isn’t a callous effort to promote the band; we questioned whether we should release it at all. 皆さんにメールを送ってすみませんが、チャリティーのためですから許してください。2011年の11月に僕のバンドはiTunes& Amazon MP3にチャリティーソングをリリースしました。『手をつなぎながら』と言う曲です。売上金は全て東北で活躍しているNGOに寄付します。好きだったら友人、家族などに教えてください。バンドの宣伝の為ではなく、チャリティーの為です。
There is still a lot to do in terms of reconstruction, but 2012 will bring better things to Japan. まだまだ、たくさんの仕事がありますが、2012年に日本は一歩一歩進んでいく！
ダウンロードは：
Download at:
Official Web Site: http://www.thecomplaintsdepartment.net/
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/jp/album//id482075047?l=en
Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.jp/手をつなぎながら-Walking-Hand-in/dp/B006BADEJC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321920913&sr=8-1
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYJpeR6ix54&feature=youtu.be
Erin and Simon, over at Never Ending Voyage, have added a page on Japan to their growing list of resources for vegetarians on the road (other pages cover Hong Kong, and parts of South America).
I spent three-plus years living as a vegetarian in rural, remote Hokkaido. Then again, I lived with an awesome vegan cook at the time, so it was no great hardship for me. The reality for most vegetarians, however, and especially travellers, is that Japan is a surprisingly challenging destination for non-fish eaters, in particular, as this recent thread at Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree attests.
In a pinch, you can always go Indian. Erin and Simon, however, provide some survival tips, such as useful words and phrases in Japanese, pictures of vegetarian-friendly dishes common in Japan (think tofu! And Mos Burger’s carrot and burdock-root “burger” on a rice cake bun), and a short list of restaurants — mostly in Kyoto — which the authors recommend.
All in all, a virtual tabehodai of useful information for vegetarian travellers to Japan.
(cross-posted to http://exitbooted.wordpress.com/)
Channel surfing this evening (Monday, January 2nd, 9pm), we stumbled onto NHK’s broadcast of “Everest: the Highest Peak on Earth,” which may or may not be the first HD film successfully shot from the summit of the world’s highest point (8,848 meters, for the record).
Whether it is a world first or not (the English-language website claims “successfully captured in high-definition images by NHK TV crew for the first time ever,” which literally claims something considerably less noteworthy), the HD images of the group’s route through the Khumbu Icefall and the Western Cwm, as well as landscape shots of the surrounding peaks and the view from the summit, are breathtaking. I hope this one will be available on Blu-Ray (please take the hint, NHK execs)…
Well, no surprise: Japan made Outside magazine’s “Top 10 Travel Stories for 2011″ listing this year. At least there’s some good news: despite the media’s insistent comparisons to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, the actual amount of radiation released in Japan appears much lower than in that historic event. What’s more, life in Tokyo is returning to normal (which matches my impressions), and major projects such as Tokyo’s Sky Tree, which will be the second tallest building in the world, are back online, and expected to be a major attraction when it opens in 2012.
Check out ken.h’s picture of Fujisan on the Outside web page.
On a more sober note: anecdotal reports from travellers to the tsunami-afflicted regions of Tohoku report that there is still widespread devastation in the area, and entire areas remain abandoned. Volunteers continue to work in the area.
… an excerpt from Half Gone Native, a memoir-in-progress about expat life in Japan…
5:30 a.m. and a staccato burst from my alarm clock interrupts a caravan of Silk Road dreams.
In the pre-dawn darkness of another winter day in Tokyo I untangle myself from a nest of futons and blankets and wife, do a light yoga stretch, fix a breakfast of brown rice flakes and soya milk, bananas, and yogurt. I hear my neighbour’s scooter pulls into the parking lot after his night shift; dawn breaks with the cawing of the garbage crows.
This part of Tokyo is relatively late in being developed; it’s still raw around its edges, showing its country roots. On my way to the station I walk past the low, flat traditional farmhouses of the landowners who’ve sold out to the housing developers throwing up two- and five-story apartment buildings along this busy farmer’s highway. In season, there’s grape vineyards and kiwi orchards; fields of onion and radish; fresh produce for sale at untended weatherbeaten stalls at the end of driveways.
I blend, seemingly invisible, with the office ladies, the kogyo senshi – corporate warriors – in blue and black suits, and sailor-suited middle school students on three-speed mama chari bicycles flitting around the rest of us like dragonflies as we surge towards the train station that connects this country suburb to the rest of the city.
At the Station
The station is a breach in the concrete skin of the city, revealing its skeletal structure, its neural connections in exposed wires and I-beams, rivets and fluorescent light, worn concrete and scuffed paint. Freight and express trains enter the station with a blast of wind, cold in winter and hot in summer. accompanied by announcements on grim metallic loudspeakers: train arrivals and departures, safety reminders (please stay behind the yellow line); delay notices: high winds; suicides.
On the platform, the usual faces, Pound’s “petals on a wet, black bough,” wait in their usual spots for the 7:32 a.m. local. Some are jacked into iPods or keitai cell phones or, less and less frequently it seems, a newspaper or book or men’s magazine.
Out here in the inaka, the countryside, the commute does not live up to the notoriety of the morning rush in the city. Even so, the morning rush would test the patience of a Buddha.
Unless there’s a delay. High wind. Heavy rain. A stranded car or cyclist at a railroad crossing. Suicide. Then, we wait stoically for the trains to start moving again. Pack on like canned bread, like grains of rice in a California roll. Like cholesterol lining the vein walls of the beating city.
On the walk into school I see Fujisan: snowcapped much of the year. Past patches of giant cabbage, of obscene daikon, between lowrise apartment buildings and light industrial factories. Sometimes you can smell the cattle barns on the outlying farms. Other times its toxic-smelling fumes from the factories.
hidesax, over at flickr.com, has posted a beautiful, surreal urban landscape of Shinjuku and Mount Fuji at dusk in winter, from the Bunkyo Civic Center, when the air is perfectly clear. Great use of HDR and post processing for effect.
Thanks to Tokyo_girl at Thorntree Japan for the tip!
Friday, December 23rd was tenno tanjobi: Emperor Hirohito’s (78th) birthday — a national holiday in Japan.
Rumi and I celebrated by taking in a couple of exhibitions at the Mari Arts Center Gallery in Roppongi Hills.
Our first and main purpose for going was to check out Kuniyoshi: Spectacular Ukiyo-e Imagination, on display until Sunday, 12th February 2012.
Ukiyo-e, a.k.a. “pictures of the floating world” is probably Japan’s most famous and easily recognizable artistic movement. Hokusai and Hiroshige both produced ukiyo-e printys and paintings, including Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo and Hokusai’s 36 Views of Mount Fuji.
Out of the 400+ works on display, mostly woodblock prints but also a few Edo-era “penny dreadful” novels and childrens’ books in remarkably well preserved condition, the ones that stood out for us the most were the storybook illustrations and the landscapes. Pictures of kabuki actors and geisha didn’t really interest either of us, but then we’re not really into celebrity culture. Neither of us read People magazine, or check out OMG!. Well, not that often…
