Found this while reading up on Jizo. A popular Buddhist deity in Japan and the protector of miscarried, stillborn and aborted children, he is being used by members of the Great Vow Zen monastery to raise awareness of the dangers posed by the nuclear armament this August 6th and 9th, the 60th anniversary of the A-bomb detonations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The monastery hopes to deliver 270,000 Jizo images to Hiroshima in time for the anniversary. “…one Jizo for every man, woman, and child who died as a result of the atomic bombs.”

From the site:

A project to promote peace in the world through art, Jizos for Peace invites people from all walks of life to make a contribution to peace. The mission of Jizos for Peace is to support people in cultivating and expressing peace in their lives.

Create Jizos and Contribute Funds.

Some leaving thoughts. I will definitely miss Japan. On a banal level the change in climate has been really nice. After five years of endless gray New England winters, the comparitively sun-flooded and warm Tokyo winter was a bit of a thrill. Many of my Aussie and Kiwi co-expats disagreed, but coming from winters with long stretches in the serious Celsius negatives, this year was balmy.

It will be a rude shock to start using (and planning on) trains that don’t run like swiss watches.

I never realized the extent, for better or worse, to which America is the entertainment engine for so much of the world. I never would have expected TV in the world’s second-largest economy to be so low-budget and uninspired. Not that the endless food and variety programs aren’t popular, but I never realized the production quality I took for granted in the US was not really available anywhere else, fishbowl-living, small-minded me…

The scale of Tokyo is staggering. As an amateur photographer, I am alternately thrilled and in despair over the infinite number of wonderful photo-ops offered by this massive metropolis. There are so many places I haven’t seen, and when I see an older tokyoite walking the city streets weighted down with a couple bags of photog gear, I can totally understand how a hobby can become an obsession with cataloguing the constantly-morphing scenery.

My best memories of Japan will definitely be the trips, however. To see the Peace Museum in Hiroshima and the great Shinto Gate in Miyajima. The air in Nikko. Snow pillowing rocks at Kegon Falls. Steaming onsen and cool afternoon air in Hakone. Fantastic memories. And I can’t wait to come back and see more.

I will miss the fruit. I know some people are creeped out by the over-groomed, obsessive perfectionism of Japanese fruit, but I think the colors and shapes are divine for anyone with a soft spot for aesthetics, and this is only amplified by their incredible taste and smell. It will be a hard landing with “quantity over quality” McFruit back in the USA, and I don’t know if I can ever eat American supermarket produce in good conscience again.

On the other hand, my roommate was telling me about a recent (Japanese) television program documenting some of the aspects (packaging, agriculture) of Japanese life which have a severely detrimental effect on the health and livelihood of people living in certain less affluent countries…I don’t know if fruit was an example but it certainly seems like the relentless pursuit of perfection here can be very myopic to any of its ancillary consequences (of course, i’m guessing many people say the same exact thing about America, and most likely with good reason).

Spring was also in effect and many of the homeowners had their planters and flowers out. This curious example is not something I’ve ever seen before, I think it’s a fern? It’s similar-looking next-door neighbor had fiddleheads, but I’m not sure. Again, any information is welcomed…

Japan certainly has four seasons…I think I’m probably just getting older, but I do seem to feel them here more than I ever did back in the States…shrug. :)

I posted my pictures from the Fuji Rock Festival 2004. Only nine months late, about par for the course with me. Give a shout out if you see anyone you know ;)

We have a new addition to the apartment. A shiny black plastic, glass, steel and silicon obelisk of sorts that does all sorts of interesting things. You can watch movies, read manga, listen to mp3’s, and if you have

This is not my commute.

My commute consists of fifteen minutes walking and a seven minute train ride, perhaps the inverse of a typical “Japanese” commute, optimized for an under-10 walk but a potentially over-90 ride on the rails.

I have to gain altitude on the way to my station, in summer this leaves me dripping by the time I get there. If I am running late, which I am more often than not, it means that I am in fact, running…to try and make the train. My door-to-train record is seven minutes, a feat I hope I never have to repeat.

My walk takes me past the giant sports field of our local high-school, which is far and away the highlight of the trip. Recently the baseball team had three metal drums set up behind home plate with fires in them. They were conducting practice as usual, and I could not stop to decipher the reasoning behind the drums (see: running late) but it was curious. Otherwise, it is always a refreshing site, youth and energy and the serious pursuit of play and all that.

I have reverse commute so I can always get a seat, I imagine this has made a significant impact on my enjoyment of life in Tokyo, for when circumstance takes me with traffic, I find myself considerably less enamored of high-density urban environs.

I think my perfect commute in the universe would be a forty minute ride on an empty train. I really love trains, and riding them is one of the more enjoyable parts of my everyday life here, and I will sorely miss their ubiquity after I am gone.

I’ve never been so happy to be living in Japan.

One area where the wealth of options and the language barrier converges strongly for me is restaurants. I’ll read the English-language reviews, but my price-range and tastes and opportunities rarely coincide to produce an exciting new dining experience. O woe is me. But happily there are a few exceptions and here’s one.

Immigrant’s Cafe
03-5766-8995

I doubt the chome numbers are much use for anyone, I personally like to find things using only the numbers and my trusty English Metro Atlas…but it rarely works out and then the conveniently bilingual Japanese person who sees my lost expression and stops to help looks at me like I’m mildly deranged while I sheepishly wave my crumpled slip of paper.

“I’m trying to find san-ni-nijyukyu”
“Is that all you know???”

Anyway, easiest directions are: take exit A4 or B4 from Omotesando station; turn right down Aoyama Dori, towards Shibuya; walk about 100m and at the first light turn left. The restaurant’s in the basement of the first building on your left. There’s a good map on the restaurant web-page also.

The restaurant staff is very diverse, meaning there’s usually at least one gaijin on hand, so the phone number is not entirely useless, even if your Japanese is.

The place is decorated with paintings, found objects and video installations you could easily imagine the variously pierced and inked hipsters who make up the staff and most of its patrons producing in their bedrooms/studios and exhibiting here for all their friends to see. And the “hipper-than-thou” urban-artists atmosphere also serves to make the laid-back and ultra-friendly service even more special in contrast. Native-level English service in a Tokyo restaurant charging less than