Michael John Grist

Shimoda has some of the most beautiful and pristine yellow-sand blue-ocean beaches in all of Japan. Commodore Perry certainly picked a choice spot to roll up at in his black ships- further up the coast other trade envoys were met by steel-toting Samurai’s stood on the grey-sand grey-ocean cock-roach infested trash-havens of Enoshima and Kamakura. Not for Perry though, and not in Shimoda. Shirahama, Tatadohama, and Ohama beaches are gorgeous, sun-kissed, and every time I’ve visited them- about 50% empty.

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The Meiji Gallery in Aoyama Itchome holds 80 works of art depicting scenes from the life of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912), half painted in the Japanese style and half in a Western style, each about 3 meters square and really quite stunning.

I discovered this Gallery unconventionally. In fact, I’d thought a long time ago that the museum/impressive building scene in Tokyo was played out for me. I’d been through several solid guide-books and already visited every place that seemed of interest. It seems I was wrong.

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The new subway station on the F-line in Shibuya is remarkably large, spacious, and modern. It reminds me of the subway system in Washington D.C. for all its brushed concrete blocks and cavernous oval underground spaces.

Even now a week after it opened there are still lots of people with cameras snapping away at its sights- of course, including me.

This is the concrete hub squatting over the escalators down.

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The other day I took a stroll over to Zoshigaya Cemetary, one stop down the Arakawa street-car line from where I live. I meant to only shoot photos, but soon realized that photos couldn’t do the scale of the place any justice, so I decided to take some footage as well:

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Zoshigaya is the area I live in. It’s a residential area which the large city-looping Meiji Dori flanks on the western edge. To the north is Ikebukuro and to the south Takadanobaba. It has a shrine- Kishimojindo, and the very large and famous Zoshigaya Cemetary. Here are some photos:

On my block, in Zoshigaya:

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I’ve always loved Transformers. Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Hot Rod, the lot. When I was a kid I collected them, once narrowly missing out on an original Megatron (used of course) at the Corn Exchange in Manchester due to not having the requisite fiver, though I partially made up for that by hunting out several of the Dinobots hidden deep in the shelving on the second floor of Boydell’s toy store in Bolton.

Once in Boston, MA I found a used Soundwave (tape recorder) and snapped it up at once, along with I think Ravage the puma-tape, but I’m not sure, maybe it was Laserbeak (the pterodactyl).

Anyway. Gundam (war story) are not Transformers. They are not NEARLY as good as Transformers, because they don’t transform. But, they are the next best thing, and in robot form at least look remarkably similar. So- when I heard about this bronze 3 meter tall statue of a Gundam robot in front of a nearby train station: Kami Igusa (upper soft reed) in Suginami-ku (cedar avenue city), I knew I had to make the pilgrimage.

So I hopped on my bike, and pelted out. Unfortunately, the first time I’d mis-read the kanji and ended up in Shimo-Igusa (lower soft reed, dammit!). So the next time I set out with a friend and the correct Kanji, and hunted him down!

Here he is hailing a taxi.

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