The Tree of Life

Dad told me of a movie a long time ago about some people living a wholesome life in a country area. Each Sunday they would gather around a large tree and pay homage or worship so to speak. Later on the movie reveals that they were on a space ship and that Earth had been destroyed by pollution or something like that.

Later this day we went looking for some necessities and we passed by this tree. It really stuck in my head.

Moving Day

Today was the day that Ai-chan gave us a fridge and washer and what not. Thanks again Ai. I would also like to thank Masando and Mizuki for driving us all the way out there and carrying it all the way to our home. Thanks guys!

Mizuki

Masando

To use the highways in Japan, you've got to pay a toll. I never saw the speed limit reaching about 60kmph but most people were driving at about 100k. All the motorways are enclosed to shelter the outside from the noise. How thoughtful :)

Tokyo flowers of summer

Today I went for another bike ride. I wanted to illustrate some of the colours of the flowers that grow here in Tokyo. These pictures are in no way edited.

See if you can spot the snake in that one!

Then I was off to Tamagawa river. I went to snap a shot of the clouds just before it started raining :(

Tamagawa River

Shinjuku

Then it was back to Shinjuku to meet up with Hiromi. This city has some nice bright colours. It's a great place for sighting strange people too.

Hiromi chowing down

Busy Shinjuku

Shinjuku bright lights

More Shinjuku

Hunting for shoes

After I took off and hunted for shoes again. This time I found them in Harajuku. They're a sandal shoe hybrid that are designed to correct your posture when you walk. This is a train driver on the way to Harajuku.

Takeshi St. Harajuku.

Guitars, expensive guitars

Later on we went to Ochanomizu to have a look at some guitars. There are some pretty expensive guitars there. The one in this picture shows 9,450,000yen. That's about $100,000. We asked if we could play them but they said no. (Something that translated as No f*cking way!)

This is my dream guitar. I tried it out. The action is great, the strings are soft, the sound is vibrant, its light and its compact. If anyone is kind enough to help a poor man out - please feel free to get me one of these. My birthday is on the 22nd of September :) aronikun at gmail.com!

Curry with Hiroshi (Also known as Mr. Manager)

This is Hiroshi the former manager of the guesthouse I first lived at in Japan. Today I asked him to take me to the cheap curry shop he was telling me about.

Hiroshi

Curry cooks

I can never capture how large the portions of servings are in a photograph. That bowl of curry could feed 3 hungry people. Both of us didn't manage to finish our meals.

Morning Bike Ride

I love it at this time in the morning. I'm no morning person but once in a while I do get up and go out to see stuff. This time in the morning the air is so crisp and static and vehicles can only be heard in the far distance. At this time it feels like the calm before the storm called "daytime". Only at this time can you find strange and wonderful things.

Our beautiful new home

I'm plan on living here for a while, no matter how hard the government makes it for me. I like it here. It is quiet, close the station, in the middle of a giant, slepless city and there's a small farm outside our front door.

Check out the futon she picked out. It took so long to choose! but what a great choice.

A day at the park

We finally found our new house. No, the photo below is not where we live. Today we went to go buy a bed which, in the end, turned out to be a double futon. While Hiromi was deciding which one to buy I was spending the day in the park :)








We topped it off with dinner in Shinjuku. That cost about 5 bucks per meal buy the way. Hiromi knows all the good places.

Dinner at Katsu's place

Katsu would make a great husband. He invited me, Hiromi and On-Chan for dinner. He showed us his prized knife set then proceded to show us his carving skills. He was shreddign fish like it was butter. He was chopping up crabs and the works. Never before have I seen such a fantastic presentation come from such a shaggy kitchen. Thanks Katsu.

His bedroom had such a comfortable atmosphere. We stayed there late playing a 3D version of connect four.

Thai Festival

Today we checked out the Thai festival. It was the usual thing in Tōkyō, a couple of performances, a few Japanese people dressed up in Thai clothes and a bombardment with salesman and makeshift shops. One thing that caught my eye were the beautifully crafted watermelons. There were Tuk-Tuk for sale and there was an awesome traditional Thai Taiko performance... (?)



The girl wasn't actually looking at the bunny.

She just realised the Tuk-Tuk were not just on display. They were for sale for about US$5,000 each.



Yeah, we had to do our beer shots. By the way, that's On-Chan. He let us stay at his place for over a week when we were homeless looking for a house.

Yes, that is a watermelon.


Yes, I don't know what this one was about. Taiko is Japanese, not Thai. But I really enjoyed it.


These guys did a little drink mixing performance, spinning around and pouring liquid from cup to cup. They were spilling shit everywhere. So messy.

This is me kicking On-Chan's butt for his kind hospitality.