SKINT.

I'm not too sure how I feel about this. Fur is very cheap in Japan. Those tails were about £10 and the lizard foot £3. I think they are from Fur Farms.

I like fur. I like meat. I like living animals.

BENTO BOXED.

I have been saving this post for a while because I wanted to be absolutely sure I had the best possible examples. Bento box just means, lunch box with little bite sized delights inside. To be delightful, they put little faces on the food. Gives a whole new meaning to 'happy eggs'. On Saturday we went into Nagoya, to a shop called Tokyo Hands where you could buy pretty much anything you needed. I needed a Bento Box. These fine examples are what I have narrowed it down to, help me choose?

TRAIL TRAINS.

Trains in Japan are a mixture of super new/super old, really strangely organised/completely logical. The local trains, which are what we take from our house to get into central Nagoya, are pretty old and clumsy looking but get you there pretty well and are ALWAYS on time. There are of course the Bullet trains, operated by JR or the express trains which are just a bit faster than the local ones. Someone told me about this before I went and I didn't believe them: the train stations in Japan have coloured markers on the floor so you can form an orderly que and the doors will stop exactly in front of the first person. Magic! Jog on Boris.

SUNDAY SCREENING

I know it's not Sunday but I couldnt work out how to do this last night so lets just pretend the time difference is to blame! Here are a few dumb videos I took with my camera. I'm not sure if they are very good quality, but its just to give a better idea of Nagoya and Osu Market.
Enjoy!

A VASE FOR YOUR TEA.

Today was a bit of a surprise kind of day. Last night San Hirano who is our Landlady popped round (Mr Hirano is a councillor or something and has been for a while. That or the photographer on his campaign was a dab hand with the old photoshop), and invited us to go to a tea ceremony with them in the morning. So we did and this is what I thought:

Tea is a funny thing really. In England, well in my house anyway, there are many kinds each with their individual following and way of making. Here is somewhat the same but with a sort of semi-spirituality attached. We walked into what looked like a town hall with judo rooms on either side. A que had formed and I think we pushed in, well, Mr Hirano did and we followed. There was a lot of following and vacant smiling. We took our shoes off and sat around a mat room on our knees. Women in lovely heavy Kimonos brought paper napkins round (although they were much neater and stylish looking than our pastel equivalents). Then an older woman came in and sat on a chair to talk to us all. I have no idea what she was saying, there was absolutely no expression in her voice but the circle of mostly middle aged, middle class japanese, found it hillarious. Then we were given bowls of green tea with a slightly creamy top. We had to bow a few times to the right and infront, turn the bowl and then drink up. There was also this funny roll thing that they gave us but I cant quite remember when we had that. I think it was made of some kind of bean paste, bright green on the outside and purple in the middle. To be honest I thought it was marzipan at first and nearly wet myself (I have a rather inconvenient nut allergy) The tea must have blurred my memory.

Afterwards we went into another room and saw some flower arranging. I have no idea what they were about but that there was an 'old' style and a 'modern' style. See if you can tell.

After all that tea and foliage, we went to this museum about Japanese technology and bits and pieces. There was this cute game at the end where you used photographic paper and an office lamp to expose little images in red and black. I liked the clock faces because of the number 8. Looked cooler than English ones I've seen.

GALLERIED.

At university one building houses the gallery which is used by students (I have a show on 17th May and one at the beginning of July) and by visiting artists, tutors and such like. We went to have a snoop around, mostly to have a look at the space (which is huge) and eye up what would be expected of us. In there at the moment is some some students work and a piece by one of the tutors on the production of meat. You are given a delicate paper animal and go through the stages of production, slowly destroying the paper animal. I thought it was brill.

We also went to the Aichi Arts Centre to have a peak at some of the work in there. It is huge! We met a nice lady who offered for us to come to her studio and see her work.