I try to make an effort to visit a new neighbourhood at least once a month. This weekend was most splendid indeed, with a total of two new neighbourhoods and a festival.
On Saturday I went to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa to check out an exhibition of photos at this reeeeally well hidden warehouse-y building packed with art galleries. I like Kiyosumi-Shirakawa. It has a massive park with a pond, lots of greenery, and cute wee buildings. And almost everyone has their own forklift. I want a forklift. Think of all the fun stuff you could do.
Later in the evening, I headed to Kita Urawa for their summer festival. Festivals and neighbourhoods are what keep me in Japan. There were cute little rugrats doing traditional Japanese festival dancing which was a deeeeLIGHT to watch.
On Sunday, after a trip to IKEA to purchase an ergonomic chair for my work ($250 is too much for them to pay, apparently), I headed to Koenji. Now, my awesome friend (and also awesome friend of awesome friend 'randy) Madoka had recommended to me ages ago that we visit Koenji, as it would remind us both of our beloved Cuba Street.
WOW. I am totally in love with the area. It seemed to be made up entirely of a maze of little streets, some complete with furry and friendly cats. I was/am so enamoured with the area that I started checking out apartments there. And I was only there for 30 minutes.
I had originally gone to check out an exhibition displaying signage done by a train guard. What was cool about the signage was that he makes it all out of duct tape. There's a video on it.. It's in Japanese though.
When I was wandering around the small gallery/shop, there was a little old lady talking to one of the guys who made the documentary on the train guard and his work. She was saying how she was drawn to the gallery by the signs and wondered what was going on in there. They got talking about the artist/train guard, and she was excited to find out that they had done some work to find out who it was. "For old folks like me, his signs are a god-send. We can see them clearly and from a distance,".
She was full of praise and was very interested in what they were doing. It was cute. It looked like she had just gone to the local supermarket to pick up some vegetables and was pottering home when she happened upon the gallery.
I like old folk.
I only took a very small amount of Koenji pics as I was in a hurry to get home before I ended up spending more money on eating out. Or found myself suddenly renting an apartment.
Labels: Japan, neighbourhoods, Tokyo/Kanto
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