Once More Unto the Breach, Dear Reader

So I went on holiday to various places around Japan.  Accompanying me were my mother and second cousin, Lyn.  I took an inordinate number of pictures, most of which were utter garbage, but a few were okay.  The best ones will be shown in a later post but for now, we have the general purpose photographs.  These might be blurred, out of focus or generally rubbish, but they're the holiday 'snapshots.'

I'll get around to captioning them at another time (it's pretty late here at the moment).

P.S.  Surgery and the holiday were the reasons for the extended hiatus - both were rather time and or energy consuming.

#EDIT# Captions added!

Pre-operation.  They make you wear these rather fetching leggings to stop thromboses.  I don't know if that's the correct plural but no one's checking.

Post-operation.  The most wicked scar was left over.  Honestly, it's brutal.  The surgeon who cut my hand open was evidently a ham-fisted buffoon because I have no feeling in the lower left quadrant of my hand.  All the better for karate chopping fools on the rugby field.

This is one of my attempts at night photography.  I don't have a tripod yet, so I laid the camera down in the basket of my bicycle, then rode out to a remote (nominally) light-free location.

So in a lot of the big stations there are exceedingly expensive confectioners, usually making tiny, extremely intricate cakes.  This was one of the cake crafters.  I say crafter rather than chef, because they really are extremely delicate.

Another one, a slightly different angle to show the scale they work at.

I managed to get Lyn to go all captain Nemo and try one of the pairs of binoculars.  I think steampunk is in this year, because they did look to be made of brass (or at least an imitation).   Land Ahoy!

I think pink is more mums style to be honest.

A picture of a cat.  Whenever I see a cat, I feel the urge to take a picture.  I don't know why.  It has to be done.  If the cat is borderline rabid, tattered ears and all then it makes for a more interesting picture.  This one was kind of boring.  At least it didn't mind having a big loud camera shoved in its face.

Another important thing to photograph is the homelessness prevalent throughout Tokyo.  In my opinion, many people back home (that would be England) think that poverty within Japan is significantly better than that which exists in London, for example.  The truth is that no matter where you go, everything is the same.  Obviously this guy has clothes, he's probably a drunk (which means he has money for booze) and there are sometimes mobile soup kitchens that roll around, but he's not exactly lucky.  It's not comparable to the congo, but it is comparable to the homeless in London.

The bib represents the death of a child, but I'm not sure why it's been placed on a fox.  The fox has a little one, so it probably is symbolic of something.  I wouldn't care to speculate regarding something this grave (no pun intended).

Yet more homeless.  These pictures follow a chronological order, so we'd apparently passed through a homeless haven.  To be fair we were going through a park, one of the places I've seen the food wagon pass through.

He's been here a while by the looks of things.

This park has thousands of lotus plants in a lake, inhabited by some monstrous koi and pretty big terrapins.  This is a closeup of one of the leaves.  At least, I'm led to believe that this is a lotus leaf.  My horticultural knowledge extends as far as green being generally plant-like.  Although there are also green snakes and frogs, and these tend not to be plants.

On the very first day we saw some traditional Japanese dress.  Overall we were extremely lucky to see so many people dressed up wherever we went.  The first time I came here there were nowhere near as many people wearing yukata or kimono - Tokyo looked like any other big city inhabited by suited drones.  I guess there's been a slight shift towards traditional values with regards to fashion, although my finger is not exactly 'on the pulse,' nor am I on the cutting edge of fashion.  Take my words with a boatload of salt.

So we happened upon the Ueno Summer festival.  We were walking back to the station when we say a large group of performers walking to the road that had been blocked off in preparation.  It turned out to be a fantastic photograph taking opportunity, and I'm really happy with a few of the pictures I managed to get.  As I've said before, the ones on this blog are photo snapshots, they're not super duper artsy pictures (those ones will come at a later date).

Despite being ushered along by a dozen different police officers with megaphones, I managed to stop in front of a performer long enough to peak under his hat.

Everyone was dressed up, even the kids.  No idea what they're supposed to be wearing here.

This guy has the Japanese festival equivalent of a triangle in his hands.  The cool kids have drums strapped to their shoulders and spend their time wailing away with abandon.

These guys had taken their costume off, and looked exhausted.  I asked if it was okay to take a picture and they obliged, but instead of just standing there holding the dragons head, they jumped back into their costumes and performed a short dance while I took a ton of pictures.  Thanks!

It's extremely difficult to take pictures of people and make it look natural, everyone throws up peace signs.

We were stationed at the end of the parade street, so all the performers were exhausted by the time they reached us.  There were also a couple of dozen helpers in yellow shirts handing out drinks to everyone, the second they finished.  This made it extremely difficult to get a picture without drinks bottles, or obnoxious yellow shirts everywhere.

For some reason, there was a carnivale section.  Who knows

Japan has surprisingly strong links with Brazil (who would have thought it) so I guess there's an interest in the polar opposite openness South American cultures.

I managed to catch her before she threw the V's.

This is one of the cool dudes with a big old drum.  You can tell how heavy it is, and how hot it was, by his pained expression.  Still smiled though.  Trooper!

I have no idea how this poor woman carried this drum.  It was as big as her and looked quite difficult to maneouvre with.

Everyone likes pictures of cute kids, so here are a couple I took a photo of.

She was the co-ordinator for one of the dance troupes, leading the way with some interesting moves.

She was very good at it, hence why she was chosen to lead, presumably.

So the first hostel we stayed at was a lot of fun.  It was relatively small, so everyone spoke to each other and invited everyone else out.  Alas, I couldn't head out with them.

Note how everything is orange.  Non-colour corrected people!  If I weren't so lazy I'd do that.

Hatchi-bus.  There's a long, boring story about a dog whose owner died.  Everyone loves it here, so that bloody dog is on everything from TV commercials to crisps.

So we went to the park where everyone dresses up on a weekend, and parades around in their Sunday finest.  One of the many screwups of the holiday was that there were only two people there.  Disappointed.

This was the other person.  Terrifying.

The Levels/Lebels/Revels/Rebels (pick one) of Yoyogi park.  Everyone in this contained area dresses up like Elvis and dances around a bit.  It's extremely interesting to watch; for myself it's a purely candid wondering, what on earth are they thinking?

There are a few different groups, each vying for the attentions of the onlookers.

This is one of my favourite pictures of the group - if  only that woman weren't in the background.

So a bit further along are tons of kids doing whatever kind of dancing the cool kids are doing these days.

Whatever that kind of dancing happens to be though, this guy was superb.  Again, I have no idea what constitutes cool, or hip or talented, but he should be a dancer or something.

There were some bongos.  Any picture of bongos taken anywhere in the world is exactly the same as any other picture.

No idea why she was carrying those, but it was a fairly interesting picture!

So that's the first lot of photos.  Ending with a man ferrying his dogs, because you know, dogs don't have legs.