Walking - Spring 2023

 

There's something quite appealing about side streets like this.  I was thinking about why that is and it occurs to me that the major factor may well be that it's an area without fire-breathing machinery poisoning the air, making noise, and endangering the lives of pedestrians.  That's a huge attraction.  In that respect especially, how nice the city must have been before the advent of the automobile!

Narrow streets and one, two or three story buildings... and even a tree.  The trend is towards making ever more tower buildings (including many vertical gated communities) and I wouldn't mind living up in the sky myself, but the more towers there are, the less friendly the streets become.

Glassed in waiting areas - nice when it's very hot or very cold - but otherwise I prefer to be out in the open.

It wasn't until I looked at this picture on my computer monitor that I noticed the destination of the bus.  I love taking pictures, but there is kind of an ironic element to photography in that while recording images to be viewed in the future, you miss out on the present....

Heading for the long covered shopping mall 阿佐ヶ谷パールセンター。 I had been there before, doing basically the same thing - walking down the street for a while and noting how long it is.

A large bicycle parking lot - with fairly elaborate entrance gates.

A fairly magical twilight moment.  This particularly area didn't appear to be overrun with atmosphere-destroying tourists and so felt more real and relaxed.

These streets aren't blocked off to fire-breathing machinery, but are generally just used by pedestrians.  It's nice to be able to walk about with only other people and not have to watch out for large machinery.

Asagaya Station

Koenji Station

Nakano Station

中野サンプラザ コンサート後

Quick Office

令和五年 - 仲野

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/ - lookback1997.blogspot.jp/

Stepping Out Again

Visually time traveling and looking at things mainly from a visual perspective (disregarding the content), things look interesting in different ways.  Modern scenes (from the standpoint of 2023/05) often have a sleek polished element to them.  Part of that is simply the color of the lighting.  With white and blue lighting, things seem sleek and modern?  That's what I'm thinking as I look at the above photo in any case.

Aside from the lighting issue I mention above, this photo has many elements that have carried forward over the decades.  One of many changes from past decades is tourism.  Japan has long been a popular tourist destination, but in decades past, tourists didn't have satellite navigation and micro-slab computers for translating the language, and so didn't dive into back streets popular with the locals so much.  Walking around in Nakano about a week ago, there were quite a few tourists there.

The people in a given area generate much of the atmosphere of the place, which is why a given place will have a different atmosphere just through time, even with the same age of locals there, since each new generation of young people is composed of, after all, different people, and different people generate different atmospheres.  From generation to generation, at least there's the constant flow of a common culture in the background, but tourists are much more disruptive... and disruptive in a very irritating way.  A few tourists in an area don't affect it much, but as the numbers grow, the tourists become a major generative force for the area's atmosphere and at a certain point, tourists destroy the original atmosphere of a place and replace it with a shallow amusement park atmosphere.  I don't think the politicians calling for more-more-more tourism comprehend how destructive it is to the local culture.

It's amazing how even just a little bit of plant life improves the atmosphere of a place!

I was sorry to see that the record and CD shop was longer in business....

- Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon - www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/ - youtube.com/lylehsaxon - lylehsaxon.blogspot.jp/