The 4th Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition

The 4th Annual Foreigner's Traditional Japanese Dance Exhibition (第四回外国人日本舞踊大会) was held in my university earlier this evening. I didn't know a thing about it until the night before when Niklas showed me a website.

I was curious, so I decided to tag along, immerse myself more into Japanese traditions! I will remain an ignorant foreigner no more!

Picnic in Yoyogi Park

After spending an entirely sleepless night at Shinjuku, I caught a few hours of sleep before Maiko's call woke me up. (read more about it on my previous blog post) After that I got ready and headed off to Yoyogi Park for a picnic with Niklas, Lia The Artist and her friends: Jennifer and Yuu The Installation Artist.

Not a fan of summer afternoons, as the weather had turned a little too hot for my liking. Yet being at Yoyogi Park, bathed in the glow of the glorious summer sunlight would have been great for me to test my new camera.

Happily I took out my new and very beloved Panasonic DMC-LX3 and wanted to see what sort of masterful photography I could conjure in such an environment.

... then I realized that I forgot to bring the batteries.

"Eeeeeyaaaaaaargh!" I eeyargh'd in shock.

I decided to go back to my roots and snap photos with my cellphone instead.

Testing my new camera on the second night of Fuyajo Cinema Festival

After having complained endlessly about my old camera, and also NOT having a camcorder for the past 6 months, I've decided to rectify all these issues by buying a new camera that could serve as both. So I went off to buy myself a Panasonic DMC-LX3. As I was buying it, I realized how outdated I've been, I was offered to buy a 16GB memory card, and all these while I've been stuck with a 1GB one.

With the new camera, I headed off to Shinjuku Wald 9 again for the Fuyajo (Sleepless City) Cinema Festival, preparing for another sleepless night, and hopefully to catch some other films, and also visit my friends from my uni lab, who had offered to look after the cup noodles booth (free cup noodles were given to everyone who came for the festival).

When I arrived, they were watching the football match between Japan and Uzbekistan of the World Cup qualifiers. Japan had already scored, so they were happy.

Kingyo's test screening at Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Shinjuku Wald 9

The work-in-progress version of Kingyo finally had its test screening at the Fuyajo Cinema Festival in Wald 9 last night (or technically, this morning, since it was screened at 12am)

A couple of the cast and crew came.

I was happy to see main actress Luchino Fujisaki again. We just ran into each other at the elevator.

Here's a photo of her with Maiko the Producer and I.





(Luchino also had a brief blog entry about her thoughts just before the screening. It's in Japanese though)

We then took a group photo, this time with Lia the Artist/ Asst Director/ Production Designer's much nicer camera.

R. I. P. David Carradine and Shih Kien (Shek Kin)

It's a little sad that I learned of both deaths within minutes of each other. David Carradine was found hanging in his hotel room at Bangkok (article here, either it was suicide or a sex game gone wrong). He was 72.

Piano virtuoso in Bic Camera Yurakucho

I was taking a walk around Bic Camera Yurakucho, checking out cameras and stuff when something in the distance caught my eye. I saw an old man sitting before one of the electronic pianos, pounding the keyboard relentlessly, and some shop assistants were looking at him.

Really tiny car

I was on my way to catch Star Trek in Shinjuku two days ago when I saw an unbelievably tiny car passing by.

Immediately I took out my cellphone to snap a photo. (I wasn't the only one)





On the other hand, Star Trek's pretty entertaining. Don't think the ending matched up with the intense intro though.

Write-up of KINGYO on Twitch

Machine Girl of TWITCH had a very nice write-up of KINGYO.

Waseda High School parade

I took these photos back on the 23rd, more than a week ago. I was on my way back to the lab when I saw a parade of school clubs from the nearby Waseda High School (which is separated to Junior and Senior high, I assume the ones I saw were from Junior High)

Not something you'll see everyday, so I whipped out my phone and started snapping.

Review of KINGYO at Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow

Marc Saint-Cyr (you can check out his blog here) had posted a review of KINGYO on Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow. (one of my favourite blogs on J-films! I gave them a nearly-completed version of the film for the 1st anniversary celebration party they held last week)

Here's an excerpt.

What especially makes "Kingyo" a success is how its experimentation never reduces it to a chilly or pretentious aesthetic exercise, but instead remains constantly in service to its characters and their emotional states. Often, the professor and the young woman will inhabit the same space, yet they are nonetheless isolated through the split screen. There is also the scene on a bridge overlooking Akihabara, with special attention given to the two characters’ hands resting close to each other on a railing. Through such moments in the film, Yeo clearly focuses on the distance that can grow between two people, be it in the case of the man and his wife or him and his mistress.

Read the full review.

Remember, if you live in Tokyo, you can catch a test screening of Kingyo at Shinjuku Wald 9 next Friday.

Additional photos from the Sagamiko haikyo adventure

Just to expand upon my previous post about my ruins-exploring adventure at Sagamiko, here are some additional photos.