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!

Washington: Fall leaves

What's your favorite time of year? 

Without any shade of doubt, I'm a child of the winter and fall months. When the summer heat finally breaks and starts to wane with a chill sliding into the shadows and caressing your bones, blushing your cheeks, fogging your breath, I'm at my happiest. The shade grows longer and colors deepen, taking on more dramatic hues. And so many holidays! With the cold asserting it's claim to the outdoor spaces, there's all the more reason to nestle into a warm and cozy blanket and snuggle or read, or pursue other pursuits best enjoyed indoors on cold, drizzly days. Halloween justifies the purchase of exorbitant quantities of candy, and then consuming them when an underwhelming number of trick-or-treaters comes a'knocking. Then there's Thanksgiving, with its shameless, unabashed glorification of gluttony and all the glories of heaping mounds of deliciousness piled upon groaning plates. Sweet potatoes and pumpkin, pies and cakes and candies galore. It's a feast for the senses, literally and figuratively speaking. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the seasons like to mark their passage with extra flair, with bursts of brilliant oranges and reds and yellows cropping up from the most unlikely of places to shout "FALL!"  

And really, who can blame them? Such opulent beauty should be celebrated, like Marilyn Monroe in her prime. It's all too fleeting in this world, as the rapid passage of fall into the greys of winter and passing of stars in their prime likes to remind us. Many of the most wonderful things about life are incredibly fleeting, gone before we even realize how lucky we are to have them in the first place. The waning of the seasons is an excellent reminder to be mindful, to enjoy the moment while it lasts, because soon it will be an entirely different moment and there's no guarantees of certainty. Storms blow through and rip branches off of otherwise stolid, sturdy trees, and friends or family can fade into the ether before we realize they've gone. Be grateful for who and what you have, while it's there, and enjoy the time you're given. All that cheese, all that jazz, man. 

  

Much love,

💘

XOXO,

NAU

Oregon: Morning in Merril

After another night curled up in our vehicles, this time the two of us shivering a little in my Volvo, we unfurled ourselves in the warming sunlight to a bright, fresh new morning in Merrill, Oregon. Mount Hood glistened in the distance, and the bright green leaves were practically glowing in the early morning dew. We couldn't help but explore the area and scope out a nearby grassy field full of mushrooms! I know, mushrooms might not be that big of a deal to most people, after all, they're generally harbingers of rot and decay, right? But for us, they're absolutely fascinating! I've long been intrigued by mushrooms and the field of mycology, but the desert isn't exactly an environment prone to fostering a plethora of fungal varietals.  We found several different fungi popping up in the field, but we're not educated enough to identify them in the wild like that, plus the sheer variety and volume of fungal forms makes it a daunting task even for the well-educated shroom-hunter. 

After whetting our curiosity in the field, and growing more awkwardly uncomfortable as we gained the awareness that we may have been exploring in an actively watched school field, we headed back to the vehicles. Antho ended up making friends with a woman who, quite literally, popped up out of the bushes while he was taking photos. When a local patrol officer rolled into the same parking lot, our mystery friend laughed and greeted him, informing us that there were only two cops for the entire town, and this one was Brian. Our single serving friendly eagerly told us we needed to swing on down to Medford to take advantage of some of those legendary cheap weed deals that legal weed had brought to Oregon before venturing off. As enticing as that offer was, we were more concerned with making it from Southern Oregon to North-Western Washington, ideally before the day was done. That meant a lot of roads to cover yet! I made a quick jaunt to the local market, where I encountered our mysterious friend enthusiastically discussing pregnancy (and a failing bladder caused by pregnancy) with a very-far-along and visably uncomfortable shop-girl, as I paid for our brunches and coffee. 

Freshly stretched, caffeinated, with snacks and rodents packed and ready, we started to hit the road. Started to, anyway. I didn't make it far at all- literally a block or two at most- before I had to call it and pull over. Despite taking my old grumpy girl to a shop in Vegas and throwing more than $600 at repairs, they hadn't actually addressed the transmission problems (refusal to reverse, on-going leak, etc) I had specifically taken her in for. Given her leak, and the fact the shop had happily informed me "she was just low on fluids", we figured the best option was to check her levels, top her off, and try her out. Since we ended up pulling over in a residential neighborhood, we had to park in front of a home... We were quite surprised when within moments of killing our engines a slight young woman popped out of the house nearest us to inquire if we were alright and ask if we needed help. After talking, we learned her name was Diana, and Diana was such a sweetheart! She called up her roommate, who coincidentally works on big trucks, to see if he could help us any but he was still several hours away yet. We thanked her for her concern, and politely declined her offers to feed us, not wanting to be any trouble. I had transmission fluid I'd picked up at one of our previous stops in Reno, but given how quickly I'd needed it after leaving Vegas, I made sure to make it a priority to get more as soon as we hit Eugene, just to be safe. 

Olliver, my co-pilot, was only bothered by the intensity of the sunlight infiltrating his cage, interrupting his nap. Once we had poured a bunch of fluid back into my thirsty old girl, checked her levels again, and let her run for a minute, we tentatively decided to go for it. We'd made it this far, after all, so why quit now? We were on the final leg of our cross-country run, and if we could make it to Seattle we'd be home. Home at last.  

And wouldn't you know it... it worked. Freshly hydrated, Svetty roared back onto the road with all the fury of a Valkyrie.  Onward and upward!

To Valhalla!!!!

Japan: Icho Namiki Ginkgo Avenue 2012-11-24

The Japanese have a profound appreciation for all things seasonal, including the changing of the leaves as summer slides into the chilly grip of winter. To celebrate, Yuka & A-chan and I went to Icho Namiki, a street lined with resplendent ginkgo trees who's leaves turn a stunning shade of yellow.

Braving the sleepy crowds, we met up and began our adventure!