No food today - just a few glimpses of Tokyo. The photo above was taken in the park behind Midtown, one of the newest shopping complexes in Tokyo. Like nearly all Japanese department stores, Midtown's basement level is filled with gourmet shops and restaurants, and I love to go there just to look at all the displays of gorgeous pastries, cakes, and Japanese sweets (it's also fun to watch the people, mostly women, lined up waiting to get in for afternoon tea at these places). Out back, there's a Japanese garden with a pond, a playground filled with abstract sculptures like the one you can see in the photo above, and a wooden patio where you can sit and just look at green grass and trees, a nice break from the normal Tokyo views of concrete and skyscrapers. There must have been some kind of festival going on the day I took this picture, because you don't normally find hot air balloons there. Before my eyes, the aeronauts in the basket fired up their balloon and rose into the air. They were tethered to the ground and didn't get very far, but it was still interesting to see, and the colorful balloon was beautiful against the cloudy sky.
The building on the left is where I work. It's made of green glass and I thought it looked very dramatic viewed from the scrappy back streets of Akasaka, with the almost-full moon rising behind it and the sky in twilight shades of gray and violet.
Finally, here's a billboard advertising a movie that I'm not sure is going to make it to a theater near you. It's called "The Rebirth of Buddha" and looks pretty apocalyptic. Japanese people aren't that religious, for the most part, except at big events like weddings and funerals. But there are still plenty of people who light incense on a family altar, whether it's in a nook in the living room or tucked away on a side street. There are often mendicant Buddhist monks standing on street corners in the busiest shopping areas, wearing straw sandals and pointed hats and collecting money for charity as they chant prayers. I guess a movie like this is just one more sign that Japan's Buddhist past still has a hold on the modern psyche.
No food today - just a few glimpses of Tokyo. The photo above was taken in the park behind Midtown, one of the newest shopping complexes in Tokyo. Like nearly all Japanese department stores, Midtown's basement level is filled with gourmet shops and restaurants, and I love to go there just to look at all the displays of gorgeous pastries, cakes, and Japanese sweets (it's also fun to watch the people, mostly women, lined up waiting to get in for afternoon tea at these places). Out back, there's a Japanese garden with a pond, a playground filled with abstract sculptures like the one you can see in the photo above, and a wooden patio where you can sit and just look at green grass and trees, a nice break from the normal Tokyo views of concrete and skyscrapers. There must have been some kind of festival going on the day I took this picture, because you don't normally find hot air balloons there. Before my eyes, the aeronauts in the basket fired up their balloon and rose into the air. They were tethered to the ground and didn't get very far, but it was still interesting to see, and the colorful balloon was beautiful against the cloudy sky.
The building on the left is where I work. It's made of green glass and I thought it looked very dramatic viewed from the scrappy back streets of Akasaka, with the almost-full moon rising behind it and the sky in twilight shades of gray and violet.
Finally, here's a billboard advertising a movie that I'm not sure is going to make it to a theater near you. It's called "The Rebirth of Buddha" and looks pretty apocalyptic. Japanese people aren't that religious, for the most part, except at big events like weddings and funerals. But there are still plenty of people who light incense on a family altar, whether it's in a nook in the living room or tucked away on a side street. There are often mendicant Buddhist monks standing on street corners in the busiest shopping areas, wearing straw sandals and pointed hats and collecting money for charity as they chant prayers. I guess a movie like this is just one more sign that Japan's Buddhist past still has a hold on the modern psyche.
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