Sunday stroll in the park

     The other day we decided to kill three birds with one stone: have a late lunch/early dinner at our favorite Indian curry restaurant, rent a DVD for a second look at The Da Vinci Code and walk in the UNDOUKOEN (sports park)--all within walking distance of each other.

reconstruction of a Yayoi village

Yayoi event button souvenir

      As we were approaching one of the entrances to the park I noticed a group of policemen standing around sporting billy clubs around their waists. This being out of the ordinary I pointed them out to Road Buddy and wondered why they were there. There was a cultural event going on in the park focusing on life in Japan's prehistoric past (Yayoi period, 300 BC – 300 AD) with booths set up for hands on experiences such as making fire with a kind of fire stick, etc. (I tried it but failed to make the thing do more than smoke a little.) I also got a couple of buttons with cute cartoons of Yayoi artifact samples. This event seemed to me to be too innocuous to merit police protection or, conversely, surveillance.

riot police for crowd disturbance control

      After my failed attempt to make fire, I started to notice other groups of police at other entrances to the park some of them decked out in riot control gear and carrying firearms. Things were looking surpassing strange. When we came upon an area of the park that was loosely roped off we could see that there was some kind of large event complete with music, a traditional dance performance on an outdoor stage, food booths and other booths featuring various displays and lots of banners and signs which I couldn't read very well.

Citizens, along with Diet members
 of the Japanese Communist Party
and Social Democratic Party,
call for the preservation of the nation's Constitution.
(Asahi Shimbun file photo)

      Road Buddy, who could read the signs, told me that it was an annual convention of the Japan Communist Party. Since it was easy to slip under the cordon (and other people were doing it anyway) we slipped in to have a look around. As we walked around we talked about the political picture in Japan in recent years. 

     There is an extreme right-wing organization in Japan that is characterized by its deep hostility to Communism and the Teacher's Union which advocates Liberal issues such as Socialism and is opposed to the changing of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution (the so-called Peace Article). The right wing is militaristic and blatantly and loudly goes around in black vehicles festooned with Japanese flags and patriotic slogans blaring loud martial music and propaganda harangues on high decibel loud speakers. They are protected by freedom of speech and appear to be immune to any kind of charges of disturbing the peace. There have been clashes between the right-wingers and the Teachers Union at events such as conferences and conventions.

black bus with flags and slogans

Imperial chrysanthemum logo
of the Japanese Emperor

      That seemed to explain the presence of so many police at the various entrances to the park and I remarked to RB that I'd be willing to bet that the police were there to prevent any trouble between the Communist Party convention attendees and the right-wingers. Hardly was this speculation voiced when, well, didn't we hear the loudspeakers of the right-wing trucks cruising around in the street outside the park.

      We just looked at each other, I shrugged and rolled my eyes.

Plaisirs d'amour (Sex for Sale)

   It seems like all roads lead to “the floating world”.


    That's one of the ways it is known in Japan. Other tags are “the willow world”, or, nowadays, “the water business”-- mizu shoubai [水商売].

Nishigawa Park

    It wasn't my intention, the other day, to wander around in the willow world. I was merely going for a walk in the park to while away the time while my S.O. was at the eye clinic for a check up on her eye surgery. It was a bright sunny morning, typical post typhoon weather, perfect for a walk in the landscaped park that borders Nishigawa, a canal that runs through our city. I had forgotten, with the passing of the years, that our willow world also borders the same park.

 building signs
for clubs and bars

    I began to notice signs that indicated that our water business was still alive and well. I was curious to see how it would compare with another walk I took in Paris down the hill of Montmartre, as pleasant a place to walk as our Nishigawa. And also adjacent to its own floating world.

    Pigalle, at the foot of Montmartre, is lurid, hard, direct and brassy. Whereas, Nishigawa is softer, suggestive, adolescent fantasy fulfilling and maybe a little kinky. There is even something for the ladies in Nishigawa—host clubs.

    Either way, you pays your money and you takes your chances. These establishments are associated with organized crime—you'd better be able to pay your bill after you've had your fun, even if it's only for the privilege of chatting with a hostess (or host) and buying her/his overpriced watered down “drinks”. 







Nishigawa: 

Nishigawa's floating world features fantasy theme clubs such as sexy nurses or young girls in high school uniforms. The hostesses are dressed in "cosu-play"--costumes depending on the theme.

comic book theme cabakura
(cabaret club)

high school girl theme

cabaret club is called  "Nurse Call"

typical store front club

so called "resort" suggesting exoticism
this one is called "Dubai Resort"

host club for ladies

comic book influence on
a more traditional theme

companion for rent

Pigalle:

Known as "Pig Alley" to GIs of World War II, Pigalle is far more blatant and raunchy than the relatively genteel and discrete enticements of our Nishigawa. But, whatever its merits or demerits, Pigalle was the home and inspiration for some of the world's great artists: Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, van Gogh. Edith Piaf. 

Shooting the Moon

     I traveled to the moon last night, in my imagination at least. 

     Back home in Western Japan after a nearly 3-month trip to Europe and the United States and still a little weary from the physical displacement, the travel destination came to me instead of vice versa last night. 

    You see, we had a perfect view of an almost total lunar eclipse in a clear sky visible from our deck. As the Earth's shadow passed across the face of the moon I could imagine my own shadow projected onto its surface and, looking back, see the planet sliding across the face of the Sun.

     How's that for a trip without ever leaving home!

Omens, Burnout (and, as always), Images

Omens and Burnout

in a blue mood-
looked up and saw green

dis-connected?

     The trouble with omens is that by the time you realize them as omens it's too late to use them. In our case, the cell phone snafu (reported in an earlier post) was an omen indicating that travel burnout was imminent. I define the phenomenon of travel burnout as the point in a journey when things seem to go wrong and when everything begins to look the same—a kind of déja vu.

one of many plaques marking
the line of the Paris Meridian

two musicians playing in the street
in front of our apartment one morning

       The nadir of total burnout hit yesterday on a calamitous trip to Versailles. Everything seemed to go wrong. The bus wasn't able to go all the way to the palace gate because of the 37^th Paris-Versailles Race event that blocked traffic on the broad approach road three kilometers from the palace. We had to walk all those three kilometers! On finally arriving within sight of the palace I found that I had forgotten to put the SDHC media card into my camera and couldn't take any pictures. (For me there's no point in traveling if I can't take photos.)

pig and chickens roasting in the
window of a restaurant in the Latin Quarter

seen in a tailor shop
window down the street

       Versailles itself is beyond impressive, it is overwhelming—far too extensive for exploring on foot—excessive is not too exaggerated an expression for the impression Versailles gives. Given such excess, the French Revolution is understandable. It makes the 1% of our own time seem like paupers and Buckingham Palace in London a hovel in comparison. But, no camera, no photos.

scrap metal barge on the Seine

dining al fresco

       After roaming around the palace grounds, around 5pm we decided to call it a day and return to Paris. It seemed that the Paris-Versailles race was over, so we waited for the bus for about an hour and then discovered that there still was no bus and we would have had to walk the three kilometers back or take a nearby train for extra cost. Unwilling to walk anymore, we went to the railroad station and waited in line to buy a ticket from a machine only to discover that it takes only coins of which we had none. We had to move to another long line to buy tickets from a human being . . . finally got tickets and got back, hungry, to Paris. A restaurant across the street advertised hamburgers for 7 Euro, but, once seated, the menu said 17 Euro so we left and eventually bought Falafel take out across the street (after an extra large daiquiri in the apartment) and ate it in our apartment.

Images

Eiffel Tower at night

street musician in a Montmartre park

       Today is our last day in Paris; using up unused Metro tickets (from yesterday's Versailles fiasco) and strolling the Champs-Élysées. Had my first encounter with a pickpocket at the Arch of Triumph—a real amateur, amusingly transparent. I shooed her off and noticed her accosting another mark with the same gambit. She got close enough to get a hand in his bag, but he caught her in the act and a struggle followed—I fortunately had my SDHC card this time.

dusk on the Seine with Notre Dame

smoke break in the Latin Quarter

       I've been noticing that I've been adding more and more people in many of my photographic images. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps they only serve as foreground to increase the depth of the image. Yet that explanation, although part of the process, seems specious at best. Perhaps they add an emotional impact that brings the image to life that an otherwise ordinary image might lack. Or, maybe, I'm seeing the image through the eyes of the people in my images. It's like you and I are here at this time, experiencing the same place, and I'm wondering if you see it like I do or in a very different way.

F1 racer in a Renault showroom on
the Champs Elysee

roses on Edit Piaf's tomb
in Pere Lachaise Cemetery

       Most likely, it makes no difference. Ultimately, we see the world through our own eyes and try to make sense of something that makes no sense. An old cliché states that the world is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. I live my mystery and try to interpret it through photographic imagery. Here, then, are my favorite images from our short stay in Paris. They don't define Paris, since Paris (or anywhere for that matter) is ultimately undefinable. But, definition is not the issue...only what it is for me.

     

street conversation

on the banks of the Seine

caught redhanded pickpocket
and the mark who caught her

probably a PR photo for Nespresso

living La Boheme

La Pyramid du Louvre

Paris—what can you say?

romantic -- the Seine River at dusk

gritty - wall of a neighborhood alley

     I think the image one has of Paris is so overburdened with romantic clichés and scenes from movies that you may come here with unrealistic expectations, maybe a little “irrational exuberance” and even a dash of road burnout. There is another cliché that I picked up somewhere that says you either love Paris or hate it, but you can't be indifferent to it. I can agree that you can't be indifferent to Paris, but I think you can both love and hate it at the same time, or, at least, alternately. It can be An American in Paris or Gigi or it can be gritty and threadbare like La Boheme.

photo op

connected

     In fact, Paris is a very big city with an overabundance of famous buildings, monuments and “atmosphere”. To try to see and do everything in Paris in a limited amount of time would be foolhardy (although many try). It's best to pick and chose and then approach the whole issue of touring with a relaxed and casual attitude and a lot of room for diversions and detours as opportunities present themselves.

vintage shoe sale?

no, these are not burned out tourists

     I always like to look for the quirky and unusual side of places I visit while, at the same time, paying due diligence to the “famous” must see and do stuff. I have, of course, got tons of photos of the biggies, but, today, I want to present a few of my quirky, a little off beat, shots. Hell, everybody's got a shot of Notre Dame!

rent-a-Porshe and fight Paris traffic

needles are to prevent birdshit...but

size matters

sculpture is titled The Crowd

Arago plaque - a line of these from north to south
mark the Paris Meridian (zero longitude
before the Greenwich Meridian used today)

baptismal fount - St. Sulpice Church -
 apparently a real shell

Hmmmm!

When was the last time you saw one of these?

Yup! 

ICBM Missile silo?