Scenes from Japan

Looking for your bike? It might be in this lot somewhere. Impounded bicycles in the Nezu district of Tokyo (see below for a photo with more context).

One of my secret phantasies is that one day I'll get a phone call from the Japanese embassy along the lines of "Mr. Penguin! The Japanese government urgently needs your advice on how to make Japan a nice place to live! Please help us!". Well, I'd be off like a shot, and one of the first pieces of advice I'd give is "tear down each and every single golf driving range".

This may sound somewhat dramatic if you've never spent any time in Japan, but golf driving ranges are big business - as is anything golf-related - and the driving ranges offer excellent possibilities for improving your swing without going to the trouble of visiting an actual golf-course, most of which are inconveniently located very far away from where your average swing-practicer lives. Unfortunately for the Japanese urban landscape, where most afficionados of the sport with the small hard white spheres reside, it would be imprudent if golf balls were to come flying through the neighbourhood, so each and every driving range is surrounded by huge fences, and as you can imagine these don't do much for the neighbourhood's looks (though I suppose it's preferable to having your windows broken on a regular basis).

For example, the other day I was engaged in some virtual aerial tourism with the aid of Google Map's satellite pictures and I came across this driving range, which is visible at a slight angle so it's possible to get an impression of just how tall the fencing is - especially in relation to the cars in the carpark and the houses adjacent on the right-hand side of the picture.

If you watch virtually any foreign TV documentary about Tokyo, you inevitably get the impression it's an ultra-modern high-tech metropolis full of futuristic buildings and automated robotic machines about two decades ahead of everywhere else. Usually there'll be a dash of the "true Japan", typically featuring somewhere like Asakusa or one of the city's few true Geisha.

However: the real Tokyo is much more complex: hyper-modernity and exoticism are but two aspects of this huge city, and often you come across tangible connections to its simpler, more down-to-earth past such as this mobile ramen stand in a side alley next to Tokyo Station.

No, that's not a typo. This is a typical Japanese street:

At Kenrokuen (one of Japan's three famous gardens) in Kanazawa. (If you look carefully, in the centre of the top right quadrant there's a dragonfly).

Open-air washing machines are not uncommon in Japan - particularly in a residential context, where you'll often see one down the side of a house or tucked away in the corner of a balcony - but this one was doing its duty in the grounds of a temple.

Seen in Kawagoe (north-west of Tokyo) in 2004.

A small covered market, typical of many Japanese towns - and increasingly behind the times. Near Meguro Station in Tokyo, 2002.

The Japanese on this Nagasaki café sign doesn't say anything like "coffee space"; instead it's the name of the café, Zô no ko - literally "Child of the Elephant", and the kanji have received a cute modification.