Tokyo Day 11 May 30, 2008

My darling readers and blog fans, I have just returned from a short trip from tokyo to kamakura to osaka back to kamakura and finally, base camp! I am in awe of the musicians and journey men and women who make their living out of the suitcase and hard cases and make personal appearances as their lively hood. I ve just been on the road less than a hand full of hours, but the trip knocked me out five days from updating. So without further a do... Day 11 (friday) to Day 15 (tuesday).

Day 11. Day 11 was another wet day. But being in the mini mountains and right next to the ocean, even though kamakura is south of tokyo, I woke up freezing! It was cold!! My packing from a really warm humid tokyo in may was shorts, tee shirts, the occasional long sleeve shirt and windbreaker. I ended up wearing everything I packed to keep myself warm. I woke up early enough to have breakfast with my friend's Mikey and Yukie's Daughter, Nina. She is such a bubbly girl, at age 10, she is already quite a clever child. I day dream about my son and how he might be at that age. It s always easier to imagine my own child at a different age than the one he is at. I imgine the whole world for him, I hope he learns to have gratitude, responsibility and compassion. Not my strong points, unfortunately, and the apple does not fall too far from the tree. But I can always dream. and change. The sky cleared up a little so it wasn't raining like the day before but it was cloudy and wetty. At around noon time, Jonas and I ended up going to chigasaki to a public skate park the local kids all coordinated the money and built. There is always a strong sense of community pride when I think of japanese people all working together. It good to see and the effort to produce a cool free mini skatepark under a highway is inspiring. I see that in the skaters who produced burnside and all those parks that are either permanent or temporary. You know what, all over the world, everyone tries to make 'do' for their peoples. That's really cool. After skate session, we did car packing for the trip to osaka the next day. At 6 pm, I was in enoshima island off the coast of kamakura right between kamakura and fujisawa. I have a really good friend, Naomi Kazama and Masa Hatakeyama. Kume arrived from tokyo and we went to Naomi's new studio in enoshima. Enoshima is a small mountain community island that rises out of the sea with praying shrines all over it. It is one part location of faith peoples, one part tourist economy island selling everything enoshima from hats to foods and one part fishing village. The people are warm here but for sure, it is a small enough community, when a child is born on the island, it is customary for the family to travel from house to house and receive blessings and share in the blessing. It is very community oriented. Strangers are instantly recognized. Its also quite fascinating that their is a hugh cat population. Huge. Because one needs to cross a bridge to get to enoshima, the owners of cats who can no longer keep their feline company, bring their cats to the island and let them go or abandon them. The cats then have to fight for their own survival and get mad hand outs from the fishermen. Thus their community essentially begins to grow like weeds. But life does not seem so easy for the cats. There is always constant struggle and a need for attention if they are just abandoned. As Kume and I walked to Naomi's studio, we were joined by a cat who tried to rub up on us and follow us around the island. I don't know how people feel about things like that, but I don't really enjoy that. It feels really creepy when an animal I don't know starts to follow me around. Makes me feel like I was gonna get jumped by a whole tribe of cats waiting to take out the unsuspecting tourist who falls for the cat. I must be paranoid. Naomi's studio is seperated from his house by a parking lot. It is nestled in over grown weeds and is braced by the mountain of enoshima. The studio is all hand made and built by Naomi. It's an amazing thing when I've had fantasy talks about building my own studio. The glimmer of justified pride in the eye that shines when I can say I've done it with my own hands, all enbodied in Naomi. I feel proud when I see what he has done for himself. An amzing designer collaborating with Oakley and Volcom, creator of Dyezu Jiken in Nakameguro, silk printer wall paster ( see Spike Lee's Movie, 'The 25th Hour' for a brief scene of main actor walking across the screen in soho with wheat paste pattern poster in full stereo color, Soho), a great outspoken leader and a proud father of two beautiful twin looking daughters. What can one say? I think I've said enough to be just a bit shy of embarrassment. Masa is a good friend from New York. He is a long time surfer from tokyo and was about to quit surfing while living in New York because there were all sorts of obstacles that held him back from getting to the waves. It was because we had the occasion to meet at a friend's party that we were able to connect and go surf. We went for surf whenever we could in New York City a few years back. Life leads us all over, sometimes we can't imagine the places we will go, but for sure no one can say that my life is going to be only point a. We sat around for a few hours to discuss 'art' and artist living and commercial works and money. We sat around and drank a bottle or two of wine and talked about family, the future and the cosmos. We sat around and caught up on old times, new times and current events. And then we all went out to eat at 10:45 because we all have to eat. The finest restaurants are sometimes the one that looks and feels like we came up into someone's home and they are straight foward and not confusing and cooks without msg. Maybe that explaination is too easy but we ate at BIG SUR in enoshima-eki shotengai. The master has had the shop for over 20 years and I m sure it hasn't changed much in that time. He specializes in curry and has won awards in japan for his recipe. Beside the curry, I m sure he gets high grades for great communication and 5 stars for seating. It is a small restaurant with a maximum capacity for 10 customers. When I say 10 customers, I mean, 8. It's tiny. And it is all counter sitting. The master is right in front of you as he prepares his meals and there is no one else working. Each order is prepared as you wait and everything is fresh. The vegitables are fresh and the curry is banging. It makes you feel like something pretty powerful and cleansing. It is a taste that makes you a repeat customer. After the meal and a full day, it was back to Yamada Casa to crash out in my home away from office away from home.