Visitors in Tokyo

After experiencing the Tokyo Blues, during which several loyal and fervent blog readers were responding by sending messages of encouragement and not to give up hope, suddenly many visitors have come by.
It is like life wants to show another colour Tokyo is able to have.

A visitor who is here for more than 24 hours is Mr. HAC.
He is the consequence of a visit yesterday to an ecological friendly house in a suburb of Tokyo. In this house a couple was living very aware of the environment.
They had the Japanese version of an “eco-home”.

Rainwater from the roof was channelled into a large tank and this water was used to flush the toilets.
Heat accumulating under the metal roof of the house was forced by a ventilator into the house where it came out from grills in the floor.

Meanwhile outside, the weather was awful. Rain and cold.
Yesterday was also the Tokyo Marathon and the thoughts were with all the athletes weathering these icy conditions.
But icy conditions were also dominant in this “eco-home”.
Outside the temperature was 5 degrees Centigrade (41 degrees Fahrenheit) and inside this beautiful house 15 degrees Centigrade (59 degrees Fahrenheit).
The friendly couple living in this house seemed not to be bothered by this uncomfortable temperature inside.
But the visitors slowly noticed the cold getting into the feet, into the skin and eventually as deep as into the bones.
Incapacitating the body. Making the movements like in slowmo.

Obviously you need to be a long-term professional ecologist to be able to enjoy living in such cool circumstances. Or an Eskimo.

Unavoidable consequence from this visit is Mr. Hac moving in. HAC stands for: "Have A Cold". Nose running, coughing and tears welling up and not of the Tokyo Blues.

Another visitor on Sunday was the new Japanese friend already introduced in the posting called “Sleeping in the future”, Ms. Tomomi Kanetaka.
She was the best remedy life could offer to chase away the Tokyo Blues.

The posh neighbourhood Shibuya was visited were “tout Tokyo” comes to see each other and the many shops, gambling houses, bars and restaurants.
An immense crowd circulates the streets and it is a spectacular and unique experience.

Ms. Tomomi found a relaxed place for a cup of tea and a chocolate cake on the 5th floor of a building overlooking the main square in front of Shibuya station.
To see the thousands and thousands of people like ants looking for sugar.

Later they were joined to have a taste what it is really like.

Dinner was on top of the high tower near Ebisu in which shadow is the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography which exhibition program is booked full for the next 4 years. Impossible to learn there what is contemporary and current photography but in general, managements of museums look in the first place how to make it easy on themselves.
Overlooking the night skyline of Tokyo a dish of sashimi was shared as well as a dish of tofu and intense and delightful conversation.

It is the tradition in Japan that the woman keeps an eye on how empty the glass of sake of the man is, to immediately fill it up when level gets too low.
It offers the opportunity to experience how women in Paris feel when the man serves them again from the bottle of wine.

Last visitor, Mr. S.P., is almost a permanent resident these days.
It has to do with the return trip to Los Angeles on Tuesday and the prospect of having to go through Immigration.
S.P. stands therefore for Serious Paranoia.

It might go smooth and without trouble obtaining a visa for the necessary 3 months.
But a bad mooded, obnoxious, macho immigration-officer could decide to refuse entry into the USA completely being a too frequent visitor.

Mr. S. P. and Mr. HAC are unwelcome, uninvited visitors refusing to leave.
What a great fortune Ms. Tomomi remains until the last hours in Japan.