Typhoon!

Our river way walls held here in Tokyo but Dan & I did go out to check often. It totally devastated the area north of here. 18 helicopters trying to get people off their rooves, people's houses crumbling underneath them. So far only one death but I believe their were people stuck overnight in the water, which was raging!

Emergency preparedness is part of regular life here. But nobody could have foreseen their house crumbling and being swept away in such a short time. Meanwhile, our less emergent prep means we now each have rain jackets, pants, rain capes, and long plastic coats. Dan has not given into buying boots as I did before I came. Even now with sun today his shoes may take a week to dry. Our entrance closet stinks already. Minor threat.

I didn't get a picture of the standing waves I saw in one of our rivers but stopped when it wasn't pouring too hard to get these pics. As you see I continue to be a bag lady.

 

This part of the walkway was flooded yesterday but they must have a way to open more flood gates to the ocean as the next day the lovely white egrets were back walking in a reasonable amount of water. 

Anyone know what this flower is ... Part of the fall flowering in this semi tropical area.

The new decoration all along our river ride. 

Reexamininig our stereotypes

Coming to Japan we knew very little about the people, the culture or the history. We now know what a broad swath over-view we had of such a vast and complex culture, country and people.

One of the things we often heard about 'the Japanese' before coming here was how hard they were to read because their body language was so controlled. We also heard that they were hard to get to know though always polite and that they did not express their emotions much outwardly.

Our time here keeps proving these stereotypes to be just that... stereotypes.

Check out some of these videos and photos taken at one of the great festivals that happens in our neighbourhood at this time of year. It is called the Koenji Awadori and if you click here you can see some of the background to this. 10000 dances... a million spectators!

Once again we were struck but what a fun event this was with none of the anti-social behaviour shown in many of our cities with such huge gathering.

We arrived early to get a spot on the street and immediately the people next to us offered us part of their tarp to sit on and offered us a beer (liquor can be freely drunk here in public and can be bought in vending machines; you will see public drunkenness but everything we have seen is always being 'happy drunk'). We chatted with everyone around us in our broken Japanese. Everybody was up-beat, excited and very chatty.

A massive drumroll announced the beginning of 10,000 dances coming by us in wave. Skim these photos to check out how proud, how alive and happy the dancers look.

As the event wore on, we got a real kick out of looking up at the bars and restaurants on the second floors full of people totally enjoying the event. Check out the guys hanging out of the windows. This is totally not the kind of ebullient, open and loud enthusiasm we expected here. 

This was another great (and a little overwhelming)  day in this amazing city of Tokyo!

Glass Exhibit

Happened upon one of my great loves....GLASS! Downtown Tokyo in the Dai Kanayama area ( expensive).

 Deep.

 Luminescent.

Fantastic, a glass book!

 

Fragile mini Mount Fuji.

Instead of glass slippers....feet.

Many artists exploring scenes with an incredible amount of layering.

 

Layers to express the fluidity of glass.

. 

Hard even to see all the airyness of this figure.

Glass magic.

Yes, I almost touched some.

Daring fragility, light,

form,

 and colour.

  Utility enhanced.

Some awkward.

Inspiring!

Yippee guests!

Glad to have Jim & Donna ending their 9 month journey with us. 

( Sharlene Pattersons brother & sister-in-law)

They say a little prayer at our local temple  before heading to the bright lights of Shinjuku, golden Gai and Asakusa.

However, we discovered with them the Log Cabin Bar in the first floor of a high rise apt., right near us a little bit of Canadian home. 

Thanks to all for a magnificent holiday

'We return to Tokyo having totally immersed ourselves in our BC world of lovely friends, fascinating conversations that we understand fully, loving family, magnificent scenery (despite many hazy days from the forest fires!) and peaceful tranquility.

BC, the Kootenays and Kaslo are truly magical places... and we can say this using our "international Tokyo" eyes. 

Thanks to all of you for making our time home so special!

View from our deck:

Helene celebratring her gradual recovery and the seeds she planted this spring in our flower boxes:

Shelley celebrating her planting:

Fabulous friends (Osa and Paul among many)

Mary Stickel, Candace and Shelley

Christopher with the best tie ever!

Doug and Sally "Yurting" ...

We enjoyed lots of outdoor time relaxing, swimming, paddling, biking, hiking and camping:

Mt. Crawford:

Campbell Bay with Mary

Shelley and Helene

Biking in Victoria...

And off of Mt. Reco near Kaslo...

Kayaking around Lisquiti island ...

And Kootenay Lake.

Thank you to all of you, family, friends, and community members for making our time home such a special time!