Monthly Archive

Ah, after a big weekend pimping my wares at Design Festa, Tokyo Big Sight it was great to escape to the mountains south west of Tokyo and stay at a Ryokan for some quality R and R.
My good friend Kumi and I headed off on Tuesday morning in her car to Hakone, a town in the mountains famous for Soba (buckwheat noodles) and Onsens (hot springs). One thing I have missed while living in Melbourne has been Onsens, I just love getting my kit off and soaking in a hot bath with good friends…. you might snicker but don’t knock it until you try it. I have had some incredibly honest and beautiful conversations in baths here in Japan. What is said in ofuro (bath) stays in the ofuro.

On the way we went to Odawara Castle and the Open-air Museum just outside of Hakone where there is a garden amongst the mountains full of sculptures and experimental art as well as a museum devoted solely to the art of Picasso.

As we hadn’t booked a place to stay yet, and Hakone is known to be rather expensive, Kumi spoke to a lovely obachan in the information centre. She explained that she was here with her Australian friend that we didn’t have much money and that we were both young women. The woman phoned one of the hotels and explained the situation and she managed to get us a great discount… we got one night with full use of the Japanese baths for 6500 yen, usually 10,000 yen. Yatta! Thanks Kumi!

The baths were true onsen water (hot spring) and had all sorts of minerals, etc that are supposed to make your skin soft and look younger. I soaked for as long as I could take the 65 degree water and then we headed off to an Izakaya (Japanese restaurant) down the street. The food was amazing, we had a selection of Sashimi, tempura, tofu and mozoku (Japanese seaweed known for its cancer fighting properties). It was all so lovely, Kumi and I gossiped about everything that has happened since I have left and I found myself understanding more and more about the relationships I have created with everyone here.
I knew how much I enjoyed their company and felt so close to them, but I had no idea how much I was a part of their lives, and still am. I realized how much I missed them on my return to Australia, I always feel so guilty about being so lonely in my hometown when surrounded by family and friends some things can’t be explained or understood…..shared experiences are essential to friendship.

Walking along the river we scared each other with stories of obake (Japanese ghosts) and enjoyed the fresh air.
Another bath and several glasses of sake later I was truly relaxed.
…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The next morning it was another bath, Soba noodles for brunch and a visit to the Hakone Toy Museum… I have uploaded lots of pics to Flickr again so go and check ‘em out!

“Phew”…… I can’t remember when I arrived or if I ever left this place. There may be no time difference between Japan and Australia there surely is a brain zone difference. I find I live in my own head here quite differently to how I do in Australia. I am having much trouble articulating the experience in English as I converse so much in Japanese here and I don’t just mean the language but also in the images in my mind. To be honest much will be lost in translation, describing how I feel in english just doesn’t do the experience justice. I suspect it might also be in the intonation.

I will however try to describe my Design Festa experience this year…. here goes….

I headed to Tokyo Big Sight with 10 kilo backpack and 18 kilo roller bag full of my works and items from Inage Kaigen in Chiba early Saturday morning. The trip was easier than I thought, as I dragged my items from the combinni (convenience store) where I had bought my breakfast, down towards TBS I was surrounded by fellow artists and designers also dragging their works, it was like some huge pilgrimage of followers to worship the God of Design Festa, and if you have ever seen TBS it could be mistaken for some kind of Mayan Temple or meeting place for Scientologists so that analogy fits quite well…. if I do say so myself.

At the risk of sounding a tad emo, it is not often I feel like I belong but I did feel like I did here. There is a vibe that surrounds this festival that is quite contagious and, I suspect, addictive. I just love being a part of it and as hard as it is to get prepared the minute its over I want to do it all over again.
It took me some time to set up my booth and it was around 12 until I was satisfied with it, by then visitors had started to flow through and by 1pm the place was packed. Over the weekend over 60,000 people attend Design Festa on average.

My brother Scott and his girlfriend Tomoko came in around 3pm although not before I small stone had begun to form in my bladder due to the copious amounts of green tea and coffee I had consumed all morning with no chance relieve myself. This year my booth was twice the size of last years and on a corner, I also managed to hire some table and chairs as well. Due to some performance artists opposite we would often have more than 50 people at one time in front of us staring at some dude making robot moves and pretending to be some kind of artificial intelligence controlled by another dude with a card board controller. I personally preferred last years “Salaryman holding Bananas” but what the hell.
I had quite a few people stop by and over the entire weekend I managed to sell around 30% of my small items and go through two boxes of business cards. I also have a keen buyer for at least two of my prints and will be meeting up with her later in the month.

I was in a booth right behind a guy who had stopped by my booth last year Josh McKible, he told Scott I had inspired his participation this year ;-), he is an illustrator who lives and works in Japan but most of his commissions come from overseas, thank Jeebuz for the internet I say! Check out his site here. He is a seriously awesome dude and am so happy to have met up with him again.
I also managed to hit the Carton Box booth again and grab their new CD, they remembered me! I asked them when their ‘next live’ was and …. it’s the 17th… the day I leave. Argghhh!

I am by now means disappointed by my efforts this year, to be honest it went better than expected. There are so many booths and so many levels to that place I am surprised I was able to catch that much attention. The real fun is actually in the collaboration and the people you meet and that was my true intention.

Before I left for Japan over a week ago I had got to a point in my work where I had had enough feedback to realize that it is useless for me to try to sell the Japanese their own culture back to them. I was right. 70% of the people who stopped and bought at my booth were foreigners and lets face it, I’m singing their song.

Any way I am still processing the experience so will leave further thoughts to further posts but suffice to say…. tanoshikatta desu!!!

Thanks to Scott, Tomoko, Akane, Akkun, Kumi and all the others who have helped me this week!!!
PS(Photos on Flickr too!)

::Tanoshiiiiii!::

Spent the last couple of days at Tateyama, a couple of hours drive from Chiba on the edge of Tokyo Bay. Went down with my good friends Kumi, Onnoman, Yuriwa and Teshi to have a seafood lunch and a stay at a Ryokan with a room facing the ocean. The weather was perfect, it’s not to humid here yet, nevertheless I still have issues with sitting on black sand amongst rubbish on a beach.
However this was more than made up for by the company who made me laugh so hard I still ache from it. Kumi is a singer and teaches voice training to several students in Tokyo, she often travels with them, recently returning from Hawaii. These students are all in their late 50’s or early 60’s and are “Okane Mochi” (loaded) so they love to travel and enjoy themselves. This is something I noticed about alot of Japanese people, they never give up learning new things, age is no barrier for dreams. We sang and laughed in a Karaoke room until the early hours of the morning and then continued in our rooms upstairs, that is until the front desk called and told us their had been complaints about the noise level!
I have uploaded lots of new photos on my Flickr page… check it out!
Well, must get back to Design Festa preparations, much to do!

Ah, some things never change. Or do they?

Spent the weekend partying at Joint bar, drank way to much, slept not enough, standard fare for a weekend in Chiba. The pictures are of Sipmoc playing a one-off gig for friends (they have actually split up) and the morning after.

I am trying to get a hold of this feeling that I have, I can’t seem to comprehend it myself let alone explain it to others. But possibly its the narration in my own head which is now no longer in sync with the one I was living in, in Australia, before I came back to Japan. Too familiar and yet totally different, I think possibly it is me that has changed. The same feelings washed over me on my return to Australia, so familiar yet so different….. selective perception is a powerful thing.

As I write this I am sitting in my friends apartment, ground floor, outside children are playing and shouting, the dynamics of their relationships are so intriguing to me. Their Japanese is very easy to understand as it is casual slang, my favourite kind of Japanese as I know it so well. Their is a kinder boy who’s shorts are so incredibly short his legs look like a newborn foals, long, knobbly and skinny. The sun is slowly setting and its starting to get chilly after a beautiful day.
For some reason I am melancholy but I think its just the come down from a crazy weekend and the crazy hours I was working before, every time I stop to think that darn melancholy sets in….Note to self: change the default setting on my self narration.

Tadaima! Once again I am back to the future, living in the land of Japan for four whole weeks! It is so incredibly familiar yet so incredibly different….. I love it.

I am staying in my old hometown of Chiba once again with my friend Yoshiko (aceness personified). Her Dad loves cats and has taken to feeding all the homeless kitties around town. I have counted no less than seven kittens and four adult cats on their balcony all jumping and playing as kitties are want to do. So cute!
I have been opening the door and grabbing random cuties to squash at intervals during the day and they all mew so pitifully that I have to hand them back.
In other news…
I have added a shop to my site and reconfigured the other pages to hopefully make them more user friendly, if you get a chance to stop on by www.otoshimono.org then play around and let me know what you think.

Watch this space as I will blog as much as is humanly possible during my stay here …. go Nippon!