Please Vote for my Shop Parade?

This is one my favourite pieces I've ever created. I recently entered it in Somewhere To's competition to get it Showcased in an Exhibition focusing on the theme of "space" in John Lewis on Oxford Street. I actually go there a lot when I'm back home so to get my favourite piece shown there would be pretty fantastic. I think it also fits the theme well. Here's the blurb 

"For this piece I explored a space in London known as Camden Passage. It's an area gaining popularity due to its numerous boutiques. I learnt from speaking to shop keepers here that not everyone is pleased with this development and that the area used to be known for being a centre for antiques, but now new "trendy" boutiques and restaurants have come onto the passage, many of them feel like they are being forced out. When speaking to owners of the boutiques, they want the area to maintain its reputation and its feeling of somewhere that hasn't changed for decades. It's a tricky place, and there are many discussions going on from both sides behind their beautiful shop fronts."

In order to get me into that exhibition I need your votes! So please go HERE AND VOTE FOR ME? (you need to like their page first)
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China, Japan and.. Germany? All in a daytrip to Yokohama

OK these are the photos that I keep meaning to upload. We made the short trip out of Tokyo to nearby Yokohama a while ago to visit their famous Chinatown. 

Yokohama, complete with huge inflatable elephant trunk...

cool little California style vintage shops along the port.

This red brick warehouse stands out ALOT. Buildings here are not made of red brick (they are in the UK though so there was something kind of comforting about it haha!). The warehouse was built in 1899 and has been specially reinforced to withstand earthquakes. (I guess that's why they don't have too many red brick buildings in Tokyo). 

Erm we came across some kind of Oktober Fest..I know that Japan doesn't actually hold Oktober Fest in October but this seems a little early..

So Yokohama's Chinatown is pretty old and apparently the biggest in Asia. It was formed in 1859 when the sea port opened. This temple is apparently not the famous one (we somehow missed it?) but it's still pretty cool. It's a Chinese shrine so different from the others I've visited here. This is Kantei Byo or the Guan Gong Temple. To cut a long complicated story short. During the Han Dynasty the emporer was losing power and many people wanted to be on the throne but Guan Gong helped to restore power to the Han Emperor. He became a symbol of loyalty and friendship in times of harship, so when he was enshrined here in 1862 he was a good role model for the Chinese migrants. 

(this would have been such a good photo if that man's bum wasn't there..)

I LOVE street food. I wish I had managed to make a food blog as I travelled across the Americas as the food I encountered just from street vendors was a revelation. Chinese street food is a particular favourite of mine. We had dumplings full of scolding but beautiful soup. Fried sesame balls on sticks full of sticky mochi and red bean paste (I actually can't stand red bean paste, I gave Rob that..) 

and glutinous rice! Which I always describe to my friends and they look at me in horror. It's just like very very very sticky somewhat gloopy rice (the name comes from the texture, not an abundance of gluten). It comes wrapped in a leaf ( a bamboo leaf in this case) and has different fillings. This one had hard boiled egg yolk, beef pieces, dried shrimp and mushrooms in. Soooo good!

That steamed bun dolphin can't honestly be doing that..can it?!

Studio Ghibli: Realising A Dream

Studio Ghibli is a bit of an obsession for many people. I am included in that group of people but I am a Hayao Miyazaki fangirl more than anything else so visiting the Ghibli museum was somewhat of a dream come true for me. If you don't know what Studio Ghibli is they are a Japanese  animation company that started in the 1980s. They are home to the few "anime" style films that make it to cinemas overseas but more impressively they always receive a positive response. My favourite film produced by them, Spirited Away, is the highest grossing animated film ever to be released in Japan (many of their films are in the top ten list of highest grossing animated films in Japan). I know a lot of people dislike anime but I still urge them to give a Studio Ghibli film a go. They touch upon so many subjects, for example Princess Mononoke centres on gender, disability and environmental issues, not to mention a good dose of Japanese folk lore. 

These are Totoros ON TOTORO ORIGAMI PAPER. I got these origami papers and OH GOD I needed to use them immediately. They're brilliant. We were actually shown a short film featuring Totoro and the Catbus in the museum. It was perfect and you can only see it in the museum so that was cool.  

No pictures are allowed inside the museum. I have no idea why as the museum is fairly small and I don't really see what you could gain apart from a nice momento of a pretty building but oh well. Since Spirited Away is my favourite and there's very little coverage of it in the museum so I was happy to see Haku the dragon in their stained glass windows. 

(There was a radish spirit inside on a window pane over a doorway. He's my FAVOURITE and kind of obscure so I did try to sneak a picture..I was told off..)

This is the forest spirit from Princess Mononoke. Another somewhat obscure character so that was nice. We got to see original paintings and sketches of a lot of Princess Mononoke as well as Nausicaa, Porco Rosso and Kiki's Delivery Service. They had coated the walls with them as you walked through a reimagining of Miyazaki's work space. They were just pinned to the walls, originals! It was pretty exciting. We also got to see original paintings of the famous Ghibli backgrounds. They're just as moving and vibrant in real life as they are in the films. 

You could climb a tower onto the roof garden and have your picture taken with this guy. He is from the first film Studio Ghibli ever produced called Laputa: Castle in the Sky. 

Susuwatari! I love these guys, I'm desperate for a really big one but all the ones I find are super small (they're meant to be small..I just like to be difficult..)

I also got Spirited Away collage papers. AMAZING. I know the characters in Spirited Away don't lend themselves so easily to merchandise so I wanted to give making my own little characters a go. If you click through and view them larger on flickr you can see the little Ootori-Sama (Bird Gods) on Boh the mouse. 

Is there anywhere you would like me to visit while I'm in Tokyo? I have lots of plans but I'd love to go somewhere I've not read about yet.

A Samurai, A Turtle and the remains of Edo

Edo. Edo is a word I only used to associate with a particular kind of art but when I got to Tokyo I quickly realised Edo is the old name for Tokyo. This building right here is one of the last remaining three storey "keep" or a buildings that acted as a kind of watchtower, of Edo Castle.

So the grounds of the remains of Edo Castle apart from being really rather lovely to walk around, actually are the grounds for the Imperial Palace (which bizarrely I live within walking distance of. If someone told me they lived within walking distance of Buckingham Palace I wouldn't believe them but hey that's Tokyo!).

We can't see too much of the Imperial Palace now. The emperor still lives there and you have to pay a fee to walk around the Palace gardens, which we didn't do. The Castle grounds and ruins were enough for us.

I did kind of go expecting to see some grand castle full of dragons, like some sort of stone and gold shrine. However if I think of paintings from the Edo period and indeed just old Japanese buildings they are made up of tatami mats, fragile sliding screen doors, and beautiful dark wood. This isn't the best if you come under fire, and fires did happen hence why there's not too much left to see in the way of full buildings.

It was really gorgeous though. I would have loved to have been here during hanami season. There were so many kinds of blossom all just about over in the gardens open to the public. We made do turtle spotting. 

This guy is in a garden just over the road from the palace grounds. He was a real live samurai called Kusunoli Masashige.  I still find it incredible that this is country where samurai were as real as soldiers. In my head I associate them so closely with Ang Lee type movies. However a trip after this to the National Museum really took me out of that mind frame (more on that later). 

History lessons aside, it was so nice to find a little bit of wild life and a patch of grass in the middle of such a big busy place. Next post the Studio Ghibli Museum. 

"We are made of starstuff" - Carl Sagan

Tights. I have somewhat of a love affair with leg wear..OK somewhat makes it seem like I might buy the odd pair of tights, I have an OBSESSION. Tabio are the top of my list to indulge in this obsession. We have a couple of Tabio stores in the UK but nothing like the Japanese ones. And it makes sense considering it originated here. 

These tights were actually a birthday present but it hadn't been warm enough to wear them. Now I can wear (*cough* and buy) sheer tights to my heart's content..yeah these babies are the tip of the iceberg.

Outfit Rundown:

Dress - World Wide LoveBelt - Spinns

Tights - Tabio

Boots - Office

Necklace(ring on a chain) - a little shop in Portland, Oregon

            Ring - some tourist trap in Majorca

I first saw this dress when I made my first trip to the huge alternative amazing mall that is LaForet in Harajuku. I knew I loved it but I needed some coaxing and when I thought it had sold out when I went back with a friend and was thoroughly dissapointed (until I noticed they had just moved the shop around) it was all the pushing I needed to snap it up.

Remember that kinda irritating song by Gwen Stefani where she says "Super Lovers, tell me where you got yours."? Superlovers is an actual shop, and somewhat of a Harajuku institution considering it's the first Japanese brand I sat up and noticed back when I first discovered Japanese street style back about 10 years ago (ergh..). This dress is from their side brand which is slightly less punky called World Wide Love. I also tried on a pair of checkered trousers from their with cat head shaped pockets, alas, they weren't a good fit. 

  My belt is from Spinns. A veritable H&M meets Primark meets Urban Outfitters. Super cool hipster clothes meets H&M prices meets an almost Primark type environment, it is ALWAYS so busy! (Seriously I went in at 2.30pm today (Monday) and it was already packed.) They had all these cool different coloured transparent belts on their mannequins though so I rummaged and pushed until I found this beauty. 

   Usually in my outfits I've got something maybe a little bit odd going on, this necklace proves that. Ermm so it's a tooth soldered onto a ring..In Portland I found this little shop selling skulls, and taxidermy and bits and bobs and the girl working there told me that the owner had gone to an estate sale and found a box labelled "Tommy's Teeth"..and then she made jewellery out of them. I can see why some people would be turned off by that, for some reason it just made me more eager hah!

A Festival On My Doorstep - The Story of a Samurai Spirit

Kanda. Outside of Japan it's not somewhere I've ever heard of but here in Tokyo it's where I call home. There was recently a huge amount of festivals (or matsuris)  in Tokyo and we attended a few. Seeing that the Kanda festival was right on our doorstep (almost literally) we thought we'd follow the procession. 

The festival takes the shape of a procession of people in costumes as well as either pulling along or , rather impressively, holding up, elaborate floats. 

As the procession passes through neighbourhoods (I guess Kanda could be likened to a borough?) different neighbourhoods' floats will break off and others will join. Presumably this is because it takes a lot of effort to hold up the floats and maybe also because it was raining. 

This tengu headed up the procession (I am assuming it is a Tengu, if you happen to be a Shinto follower or study it please leave a comment and correct me). (remember how I learnt about tengu up on Mount Takao) Check out his amazing sandals or geta, they're so high! So the procession I believe will start in its respective "borough"'s main shrine and its route will circle round. The festival originally started to celebrate the winning of a particular battle, but now it is to honour the kami of the main Kanda shrine. The shrine in Kanda , known as Kanda Myojin (I haven't been yet, I KNOW IT'S AWFUL) is a shrine where you can find three kami or shinto forms of god. What's cool about Kanda Myojin is while it is where businessmen go to pray to Daikoku-ten and Ebisu, both gods of fortune (also Ebisu's story is mega cool, need to go to the Myojin and take some good pictures so I can share it with you), but it's also home to a person who became a kami called Taira No Masakada. 

Masakada's pretty amazing but his story's pretty complicated. Basically he was an outlaw (not to mention a samurai) and while yeah, he had his fair share of run ins with the imperial government and did his share of pillaging he went to the government in the end (way back around 937) with what is assumed to be a plan to improve the current imperial laws that were in place in the form of a take over. The government at the time obviously weren't happy with this and he was killed. His head was separated from his body and buried near the Kanda Myojin Shrine (it apparently flew there by itself, apparently landing in a small fishing village which later became Tokyo).

Despite his misgivings people in Japan respected Masakada for standing up to the -The Man- and made him a kami in Kanda Myojin. When the emporer was put under pressure to name Tokyo's Ten (most important) Shrines he did not want to name Kanda as one due to its association with a government protester and he took away Masakada's kami status. But he was such a popular spirit (and apparently still is) that he was symbolically returned to Kanda Myojin after World War 2 (now there's a festival I'd like to have seen!) 

It's said that Masakada's spirit is like he was in life, powerful, pretty violent and vengeful. And when the shrine falls into disrepair he reeks havoc on the countryside bringing natural disasters, so presumably they keep the shrine in pretty good nick! Another reason I really have to go visit!