Japan: Design Festa Fall 2013, Part 03

Design Festa is a massive, multi-media event that engulfs the Tokyo Big Sight twice a year for several days each time, gathering some of the greatest creative talents and artists from the world over.  It's seriously so massive that I had to divide a single day's visit into three different blog posts! You can catch up on those here and here. While their main focus is on giving local artists and artists from the nearby regions a platform to mingle and network along with a space to share their various creations, whether they be dancers, seamstresses, special effects artists, illustrators, print-makers, mask-makers, leather-crafters, etc. etc. The point is, all forms of creative expression are welcome, and so this massive space near Odaiba is transformed twice a year into a surreal, sensory-overload of creative output. It's pretty incredible, and an awesome experience if you ever get the chance to attend! It's Asia's largest art festival! Given that it is twice a year, you get the chance to attend in either their Spring or Summer sessions, and each of those generally extends throughout the weekend so you can try to make it for one day if not all. 

The live acts, from dancing ninja schoolgirls to live rope-bondage demonstrations, do change from day to day, so if you find out about a particular act that you're dead-set on seeing, plan accordingly. Also, tickets are CHEAP! Considering how Tokyo is typically viewed as a high-ticket city to live in or visit, the admission cost of ¥800 in advance or ¥1,000 at the door are really quite reasonable, only amounting to about $8-10US respectively. You can also opt for the two-day passes for ¥1,500 (in advance) or ¥1,800 (at the door) for a single or two-day ticket, which amounts to about $15-$18US for two days of entertainment. Trust me, you'll likely need both days to really take in everything the Festa has to offer. If you can read Japanese, you can order your tickets for the Spring Session of 2019 on May 18th and 19th here, with 0 fees, but you can also pre-order your tickets at any Japanese 711, Circle K Sunkus convenience store, or Ticket Pia! There's plenty more ticketing information available on their website, too!

Japan: Design Festa Fall 2013, part 2

Design Festa is one of those experiences that is so surreal, so sensory-overwhelming by its very design and nature that you might have to stop and wonder if someone might have spiked that water somehow. You can explore a labyrinthine space filled with dwarves, nightmare-faced visions, sexy girls in scanty-clothes, murals unfolding in real time and way, WAY more! Design Festa is a twice-annual event where artists from all over the world, though predominantly Asia, come together to showcase their talents and rub-elbows together. As you might imagine, this leads to some incredible collaborative experiences as well as some rather unusual neighbors, like my multi-eyed friend here who was seated near a caricature artist. As the caricature artist was drawing, I watched our friend here hover and observe, making the artist and his model both squirm a bit. Good times, I assure you! Where else would you find a caricature artist from South Korea hanging out and interacting with a special effects artist from Japan? Well, maybe a movie set, but for the rest of us this is the place to meet and mingle!

You don't have to be into large-scale formats to be well-received, nor does your art necessarily have to make sense or even comply with general standards of decency to gain an audience here. Luckily, most of the creators are exceptionally talented at what they do, whether it's manufacturing tiny robots and dioramas or drawing girls shooting rockets out of their genitals. The world is a very big and multi-faceted place, and there's room for everyone's creativity here, or at least that's the attitude the team behind Design Festa tries to bring to the table, and I can most certainly respect that. There's a little something for everyone to be found here, whether you're into decorating your phone cases to look like tasty desserts, punny t-shirts, nightmarish masks, fur-suits, or good old fashioned rope bondage, it's a well-rounded showcase.

There's really only so much I can say about the experience, after all... this is the kind of thing that requires you to bring all your senses to the table, but since you couldn't physically be there with me these photos will have to suffice. Enjoy!

Japan: Design Festa Fall 2013, part one

What do you get when you combine some of Asia's most creative artistic minds together twice a year at Tokyo Big Sight? You get a wildly inventive, incredibly diverse array of outstanding talents and creations mingling together, sharing their crafts and selling their wares as part of the ongoing Design Festa Series! As mentioned above, it's a twice-annual festival, occurring in the spring and again in the fall, allowing artisans from across the land (along with nearby countries) to come and share their passion with each other. Meet and greet many of the creative minds themselves, live and in the flesh! Most of who and what I encountered during my visit to the Fall Design Festa of 2013 was thoroughly awe-inspiring, for the precision and sheer imagination or dedication that went into it, while sometimes it was more confounding or awkward, like school girls with fabulously voluminous hair getting railed by a faceless man who appears to be wearing a device intended to, I think, uhh, collect her fluids? 

Huh. But hey, just because it might not necessarily be my cup of tea doesn't mean it isn't a well-crafted piece of art that will titillate someone else! 

But anyway, here are some sweet elephants, in case you're feeling a little disturbed by the blatant hentai above. Remember, though, that these pieces were all publicly displayed for all to see inside of Tokyo Big Sight, so the artist wasn't trying to hide their creation from curious eyes. In fact, completely the opposite! This event is all about getting your work seen and sharing it with others. One of the coolest things about Design Festa is that it's not limited to one particular type of artistry- if you're into cosplay, there were many people milling about in costumes, from furry to space alien, steampunk pirates to mohawk and studded leather sporting punks. All are welcome, and all art is respected. It's a wild experience, and pretty psychedelic when you stumble down some of the more performance arts-oriented groups laden corridors, but do your best to keep your wits. I know it can be hard with the Japanese rope bondage demonstration in one corner, and the friendly lolitas in the other, but there's a lot to see here!

Given just how much there actually is to see here, I've broken this post into several different posts, and it's still pretty photo heavy. I didn't want to exclude any of it, though, because it's all so fabulous!

I hope you enjoy~

Seattle: Japanese Garden

It probably goes without saying, but just in case you need to be reminded, I'm absolutely and utterly enamored with the country of Japan, from the beautiful scenery of the natural landscapes to the dense urban sprawl of Tokyo to the kind-hearted and incredibly generous people I met along the way, there's something just so magical about the place. Given this state of affairs, it should come as no surprise that when I learned of Seattle's Japanese garden, conveniently located within the gorgeous and expansive Washing University Arboteum, there was no doubt that we had to go. The 3 and a half acre park was constructed under the guidance of Juki Iida, a renowned designer of Japanese gardens, during the 1960s and has remained a fixture of the Seattle gardens scene ever since. The Emerald City itself is home to roughly 6,000 acres of parks, so even if you're not much of a Japanophile the city will have something green and gorgeous to appeal to you. This is a city that takes it public greenery seriously, and for that, among other reasons, I'm all the more in love with it. 

There's a reasonable fee for admission, but as I said, it's reasonable. You can park for free at the Arboretum nearby, which is a rare gift to find in Seattle. The grounds are meticulously maintained, and while it was a rainy day during our visit there were still plenty of people walking about taking in the beauty of the place. It was still the midst of fall during our stroll, so shades of red, orange and yellow burst through the green to add a spark of vivacity to the surroundings. It was an absolutely lovely stroll, even in the drizzling rain, and I look forward to seeing the garden again under the light of another season! It definitely gave me some hard nostalgic pangs for my time living in Japan, and for that, I have to applaud the designer. They knew exactly what they were doing since they were a professional designer of these gardens in Japan! 

There are plenty more photos to come, but if you ever get the chance to visit the gardens in person I seriously encourage you to do so! There's only so much I can capture in a photo, after all...

日本 [Japan]: 春の日 Spring Day

Believe it or not, one of the most enjoyable ways for me to spend a day off from working at Tokyo Disney Sea was simply to wander around, or ride my bike through, the surrounding town of Urayasu. I was quite lucky to be given the opportunity to live, entirely on my own, in an apartment provided by the company in the residential area of Urayasu. Most Disney cast members were housed in the Disney Village, where they were insulated against the native Japanese and instead surrounded by their fellow imports. While I'm sure there's a lot to be said for that experience as well, I was very happy with my immersion. Urayasu is a smaller suburban town outside of Tokyo proper, and it's a popular choice for young families looking to settle down. Given this nature, there were many schools and family-friendly features to the area that made it all the more quaint and lovely to explore. Even in my first week I couldn't help but notice how frequently you'll see small Japanese children out and about on their own, whether they're commuting to school or simply playing outdoors. All those rumors about safety? For the most part, they're absolutely true. I never felt threatened while exploring Japan, and even when I was unlucky enough to be assaulted it was by another foreigner, not a Japanese person, so that's something. The respect the Japanese have for one another, whether it's exemplified through the use of headphones and quiet chatter on trains, or the cleanliness of shared spaces, is something to admire wherever you wind up. 

This family-forward, community-first approach means that even the youngest school children are encouraged to feel like active participants in their community. Friendly signs hang from school fences greeting the morning, and familiar cartoon characters are eagerly painted onto neighborhood flowerboxes for the enjoyment of all. The bright, primary colors provide a sharp contrast to the pastel pinks of the blooming cherry blossoms in spring, adding to the childish feel of enjoyment. It's hard not to feel carefree riding your bike through the scattered shadows of an incomprehensible burst of flowers cascading down and perfuming the world around. 

日本 [Japan]: アパート 庭園 Apartment garden

Once upon a time, in the mystical and far-off land of Urayasu, Chiba-ken, Japan, a naive young female thing was flown over to draw at Tokyo Disney Sea. In her free time, this strange little duckling would waddle off to explore the nearby area and sometimes even venture into the big city, where untold mysteries abound. The moist, humid air gave much-needed hydration to the environment and allowed all manner of beautiful plants and blossoms to bloom, further adding a layer of magic as each season brought new delights in an incredible array of colors and shapes. The desert, with its own mysteries and subtle beauty, never provided such abundance of growth in foliage or shades of color, and thus a desire to embrace this propensity towards growth began. Lugging bags of potting soil, and the various pots themselves proved an interesting challenge on a bicycle, but it was pulled off, somehow. Seeds were bought, and seedlings, too, because the more the merrier in her green kingdom. Day by day, week by week, the garden grew. New varietals joined the gang, and growth was eagerly charted. There were tomatoes, cucumbers, bitter melon and peppers, aloe and even an indoor ficus tree. To her utter delight, these things flourished and grew, something that seemed an ever elusive goal in the arid, assaulting heat of Nevada. The patio was rapidly colonized with swirling, exploratory vines, and bright, happy yellow and white flowers. When petals recoiled and fruits began to take their place, it was an endless source of curiosity as the plants evolved from one form to the next.   

And like her vines, her hair grew, too. Soon it began to tickle her elbows as she rode her bike or tickling her back in the shower. It had been years since the growth was tended, a wild forest of overgrowth sprouting from the scalp. At times this served as a security blanket, a protection against the harsh glare of an angry coworker or the perpetual curiosity of casual citizens probing with their eyes to try to decipher what her purpose or meaning was, and at other times it gave way to confusion as young children assumed she might be a Princess, as she skirted nervously through the corridors of the mermaid lagoon. No changing of color was permitted in the magical kingdom, so only natural hair in its untouched shade straight from the scalp proliferated. It grew and it grew, with little desire to trim it manifesting in its host. Over time, it came to be the longest it may have ever been, though such things are a bit difficult to delineate.  

Thanks for visiting!

💖

XOXO,

NAU

日本 [Japan]:駅のゲートを修復 Station gate repairs

I don't know about you, but it's not every day that I'm given privy to the inside of every-day machines, like the ticket gates at Maihama station, so whenever I come upon these situations I can't help but be excited and try to capture some photos to commemorate the occasion. These are machines we rely on, day in and day out, as we go about our daily routines, run our errands or dash off to explore new parts of the city, and without hard-working servicemen and women they'd rapidly decay into unusable hunks of rust, I'm sure. It takes maintenance, and lots of it, to keep a city as densely packed and rapidly paced as Tokyo (and all of its surrounding suburbs that feed the workforce into the city proper) running smoothly. My respects to these folks, who often go through life quietly tending to the gears of society without much fanfare or praise for all their diligence. 

And that's a crying shame that they aren't given more respect, too. It's not always glamorous work, keeping cities going, but someone has to do it. It saddens me so much that people, especially in my home country back west, seem to denigrate and insult these very necessary jobs that facilitate the lifestyles we're used to. The world, nor society, would function very well if every single one of us were to become doctors or lawyers. Who would ensure our roads are smoothly paved, or our bellies filled with something hot, tasty, and quick? Laborers, servicemen and women, food-workers, without them we'd all be much worse off! So, next time you see someone directing traffic, maybe give them a smile and a wave for their efforts to keep you and the other drivers safe. 

またね

Until next time!

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Japan: Urayasu life and gardens

Unfortunate, though familiar as it may sound to many of us, when I lived in Japan I found the majority of my time was utterly consumed with work.  Due to the fact that my living in the country was utterly predicated upon keeping my employment with the Arribas Brothers as an artist/performer in Tokyo Disney Sea, it should be understandable why this would be such a prominent priority, but it inevitably leads to a routine that could grow a bit monotonous if I didn't consciously strive to break free of it from time to time.  Most days involved a brief attempt to get coffee or some form of sustenance into my gullet before darting off for the bus, changing into my uniform at the employee lockers and then spending the rest of the visible sunlight hours in my subterranean drawing-den, cranking out caricatures until we were finally granted permission to shutter up for the day and go home. Arriving home late, sore and dreading the countdown until it was time to hit reset and start the routine over again, I would cook up or scavenge some food, decimate some beverages and go to sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Day in day out spent primarily indoors. Naturally, my days off were a blessing! Aren't they always? Since I was given the opportunity to live and work overseas, I'd try to take advantage of that fact and explore the neighborhood or city of Tokyo proper whenever I had the energy or motivation. I have to admit, some days it was much more difficult than others to drag myself out of the house and into the city, but it was always worth the endeavor in the end. On this particular outing, I stopped to compliment my neighbor for her beautiful garden, pictured above- this led to us becoming friends and going on some adventures together later on! You never know what kind of things can come together like that unless you get out there and try, you know? She invited me out to have lunch with her after our discussion about her garden, fennel, and my obviously being from out of town. She showed me a lovely little restaurant not far from our home that I never would have thought to try if not for her suggestion, so again, get out there and do the things! Talk to the people! Be brave!

As always,

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Japan: Yurakucho Food Alley in Tokyo

Throughout most of Tokyo, as is the case for probably most of urban Japan as well, you're rarely ever more than a stone's throw away from something delicious to eat. There's a lot of people living in Tokyo, like, around 38 million or so people these days. That's a lot of people needing something to nosh after a long day, yeah? My hometown of Las Vegas only comes in as averaging around 2 million residents, while my second-home in Seattle has roughly 7 and a half million residents and my beloved third home of Seoul clocks in with roughly 25.6 million residents. Suffice to say, Tokyo has a lot of residents, and those people are going to need food. Ideally, they're going to want good food, because anyone can just pop into a 711 and grab an onigiri or bento if they want low-cost sustenance.  Where, pray tell, does the average salaryman find himself stopping for a bite after an arduous day of, uh, salary-manning? One popular location is going to be Yurakucho food alley, a narrow street tucked under the tracks of the Yamanote line is teeming with restaurants on either side offering delicious bites and something to sip on, too. The typical solution to this need-to-feed (and drink) is an izakaya, where small plates are served alongside lots of booze, to help take the edge off while facilitating your buzz. If you need something a little more nourishing, there are plenty more restaurants to fill that niche, too!

On this particular outing, my friend A-chan and I opted for a grilled beef restaurant, though other dishes were, of course, available, like that big plate of gooey cod fish-sperm goodness shown above on the right known as shirako (which, yes, I absolutely ate). There were also places to pop in for yakitori, or grilled chicken, along with a restaurant serving horse, a coffee shop, and several other options tucked away into the narrow space so your options aren't limited to be sure. Most of the restaurants had a shared restroom, found not far from our seating spot at the beef place, and most of the restaurants are enclosed by sliding plastic barriers, a common trend throughout the region (as I've seen it in Hong Kong and Seoul, too). Suffice to say, if you need a tasty meal, you can't go wrong by following the hard-working salarymen who's tireless efforts keep the economy of Tokyo churning along into the narrow space of Yurakucho alleyway. Where better to literally rub elbows with the local people?