Less than one hour from Ikebukuro station by Tobu Tojo line, a quiet city named Kawagoe welcomes the poor Tokyo girls looking for friendship and pizza on winter Saturdays !

A myriad of bakeries, cute little shops, and a real French community living around because of the proximity of a leader French company... What else ? Good friends! Thank you N. and A. for the warmth and the home-made pizza !

Next time : Little Edo, here I come !!

Stop kidding: that's winter after all. Oh yes, we spend a sunny December under the gingko leaves and we almost forgot that winter was coming for good... Today, there are 15 centimeters of  thick snow on the streets. Hopefully this monday was a holiday and I could cuddle at home with good food and get out only to have fun like kids with my roomate. Snow is so great when you can stay at home!

Give us a bit of snow and two grown-up adults get back to the spirit of a 5-years-old.

And to warm up : home-made pumpkin and bacon cream spaghetti ! Life is beautiful !

In Japan, you don't need to be in couple to celebrate the St Valentine Day. Actually, celebrating Love just the two of you, with your partner, would be way too... intimate. So for the Japanese, Love consists in offering chocolates to everybody... or more exactly, women offer chocolate to men. All men around. The man of your life, your boss, your co-workers, your landlord, your neighbour, your gynecologist: every guy you can possibly know and meet that day. One month later, on March 14th, the so-called "White Day", men are supposed to offer chocolates back - if possible, more expensive ones. Oh, by the way, Love is also something that deals with money in Japan, because the chocolates are valued and appreciated according to their originality and their price. You can offer cheap industrial giri-choko (the chocolates of duty) to the guys you don't care about, but your darling deserves a honmei-choko, a real good chocolate, most of the time home-made, where you have put your whole heart in it. Anyway, "bref", I have made chocolates this year. Wanna have a look ?

My yummy Truffes

My crispy peanut chocolates

My pretty packages

And I forgot the tomo-choko, the sweet friendship chocolates that girls offer to girls on Valentine Day, because we rock and we love each other. Thank you, Miss A. !

Happy Valentine, everybody!

Tokyo is not Japan. We have been said this so many times, as if all the capitals of the world were not special, existing by themselves while embodying the whole country at the same time. Capitals are a world apart, and maybe, it's true, Tokyo especially differs from the rest of the Japan because of its international airport, because of its cosmopolitan population, because of its business-oriented lifestyle. But... surprise ! Two hours by Shinkansen later, you are in Kobe, more international, cosmopolitan and business-oriented than Tokyo. And a few kilometers away, you enter Kyoto, the old capital, which is paradoxically the symbole of "true", "deep" and "before-the-gaijin-forced-us-to-open-up-to-the-world-and-brought-us-plegs-such-as-imperialistic-desire-and-war-and-loss-of-bushido" Japanese thinking. Do the capitals have to die to represent correctly the national spirit, finally ?...

Whatever the answer, here are the faces of us, ETP guys, playing around in Kansai.

Christmas means gift rapping, Chrismas means chorus songs, and Christmas means EATING.
This year, I had not only once but three different Christmas dinners in Tokyo. Which means, three diets at least to write on the the To-Do-List for 2010, but let's not talk about boring things.

Family first :

MY CHRISTMAS SURPRISE DINNER WITH SISTER

It began with this : the huge Xmas package, full of good French specialities, sent by our darling parents... Chocolates, tapenade, foie-gras, marrons glaces, caramels, calissons...
Look at these chocolates. Isn't it a piece of art ? French cooks, we love you !

And then, for the little "local" touch : we went to the izakaya at Ebisu, and had delicious fried spring rolls and roasted tuna with cheese ! Merry Christmas !

Then, friends :

MY CHRISTMAS PIC-NIC WITH THE ETP FRIENDS

Most of the ETPs went back to their countries to celebrate Christmas with their families, but a few of us were still there and ready to have a toast ! Thank you again to Attila and Melinda for hosting the party, and to Nataly for her fine organization of the Christmas lottery !
Our hosts cooked meat pancakes and we had the most delicious "buche" covered with nuts and almonds.

Let's jump to the boyfriend time :

MY CHRISMAS ROMANTIC RENDEZ-VOUS

At restaurant Temari (Shinjuku), you can sit into nice balls which are supposed to represent the toys the little Japanese girls play with, but from my French point of view it looks like Christmas tree balls... No ?

We had absolutely delicious sushi-balls, meat balls, deep-fried chicken, and other delicious and funny meals.

Boyfriend has a family too. On the 26th, I had the honor to join :

MY CHRISMAS FAMILY MEETING

Hitoshi's cousin is a volunteer for the association Support 21, which helps the refugees' kids to get a good education and the best chances to succeed in the Japanese society. I had the chance to join this meeting where some of these former kids, now high-level students, were presenting their researches and sharing their experiences (in Japanese of course). There were Chinese, Viet-namese, Peruvian, Brazilian students and also a very interesting young woman, born from an English man and a Korean woman, raised in Japan and totally Japanese - she had to struggle a lot to learn another language than Japanese - who made a speech about identity and the difficulty to exist as a human when you don't belong to the classic categories. An during all this time, we had sweets and drinks, whithout speaking of this amazing Christmas chorus where another cousin of Hitoshi was singing (the first on the left).

Chorale de Noel - Tokyo December 2009

 And after that... the first cousin invited us to have a Chrismas nabe (a kind of light fondue, soy-sauce-based, with boiled meat, vegetables and udon in this case). I had the chance to visit her huge appartment with a great view on Tokyo Tower, and to meet her Canadian husband. And she cooked chocolate truffes too !

Thank you gentlemen for cooking the nabe !

And they have a real Chrismas tree, with the authentic smell ! That is the smell of Christmas !

Thank you everyone for this wonderful Christmas. It was delicious, colourful, tasty and funny ! Your smiles made it even more beautiful !

The first time I met Akiko, it was in front of a piano - she was listening, at this time. It was in Paris, under a grey sky, something like three years ago. Since this moment, we met occasionnally in real or virtually - we had drinks and talks at Cour Saint Emilion, birthday messages by e-mail and mutual blog-sponsoring : she is the author of "Coco wa Pari" (link available on the right column...).

Akiko-san can speak French, makes beautiful pictures of Paris; and, as I discovered tonight at Kawai Salon Omotesando : she is an amazing pianist.

For me who is definitely not a musical person, concerts and recitals are sometimes difficult for me to understand, especially when the music is not very narrative.  But Akiko-san does not only play, she plays, with all her body and face  acting, playing with the music. I had a great moment with Mozart, Chopin, Debussy, Faure and Ravel - all great men suddenly embodied by the beautiful lady pianist.

明子さん、心からありがとうございました。

This is the first open-cemetery I have seen in my life : no gate, no fence around the grave-yard; the normal street just becomes the Aoyama cemetery street and that's it, you walking into the "garden of souls"... It's green, a bit wilder than the city around you can visit from dawn to sunset. Some people do their jogging around the graves, some other do pic-nics during the summer. It's actually a lively place...
I was looking for the grave of François Bonne, a little priest from my aunt/uncle/cousins' region, la Chartreuse (France) who became bishop of Tokyo around 1911, but I couldn't find it i the Gaijin-bochi. It was one century ago...

In Paris too, you can find large and beautiful parks. This one is called "Buttes Chaumont" and strangely, tourists usually don't got there to have a walk, and that's a pity because it's one of the best parks in the region... The view is beautiful, the grass is green and people are relax.

パリにも、きれいな公園が見られます。ここは十九区のブットショーモンという所です。理由がないけど、環境者が少なくて、とても静かな公園です。でも景色は本当にきれいで、モンマートが見られます。

If you like typical French-style gardens, you will love the Tuileries.
(I tried to teach a Japanese how to say this word properly. Mission impossible. If you are Japanese and you read this post, it's a challenge for you...)
Under the sun, it looks like a giant fry pan (I was there, trust me), but this is the kind of place which was born to show the royal power to the world, and five centuries later, it still smells like the perfume of Catherine de Medicis.

この公園、知っていますか。カタカナで書き方が分かりませんが、スタイルがとてもフランスぽいです。今日パリには本当に暑かったですがこの場所の歴史は興味深いですから素敵な散歩ができました。

It's a very old castle full of priceless Italian paintings, Egyptian sculptures, Greek statues and French Kings' ghosts. It's a mythic museum, a touristic spot and a gathering place. There is always a smell of mystery in the air when you enter it and see the pyramid. As if the aliens were invading the old castle.

From Arthur Rimbaud Alley, you have the National Library on your right, the Simone de Beauvoir Bridge on your right, the Seine River under your feet and the Josphine Baker floating pool in front of you. The area is strangely calm, non-touristic, there are space and wind, a few students are reading on the steps of the library, some couples go to the movie theatre. Nothing moves...

Le pauvre songe

Peut-être un Soir m’attend
Où je boirai tranquille
En quelque vieille Ville,
Et mourrai plus content :
Puisque je suis patient !

Si mon mal se résigne
Si j’ai jamais quelque or,
Choisirai-je le Nord
Ou le Pays des Vignes ? ...
- Ah ! songer est indigne

Puisque c’est pure perte !
Et si je redeviens
Le voyageur ancien,
Jamais l’auberge verte
Ne peut bien m’être ouverte.

My nice Japanese-language-tutorate teacher offered me an inkan - a Japanese seal that you use at the bank or in any situation when you have to proove your identity. Japan is not a country where the hand-written signature is supposed to proove anything. Instead, you have to take care of this little piece of wood, metal or plastic the imprint is your identifier. Of course, you have to make the imprint register at the city yard for it to be officially yours.

As a foreigner, I don't really need an inkan in my daily life, but I was fascinated by the gift - first, this one looks like a piece of jewelry :

乃絵美

Although I have never met a humanoid robot on the street in Tokyo - at least, I don't think so -, Japan is the country of robots. For a Westerner, there is something insane to think that in a near future, human-faced robots are going to invade the Japanese society, which is shrinking every year, and to work as office ladies, medical assistants or flight attendants. But for many Japanese, it's not that crazy to consider robots as proper "beings". One could deduce that's because the Japanese people are very similar to robots sometimes ; but you can find deeper explanation in the shinto philosophy and in the "social face" phenomenon in Japan.
In shinto, there are spirits, "souls", inside natural things such as stones, trees, nature in general. So it's not so strange to imagine that robots could be animated by the same kind of spirit and feelings.
Then, because of confucianism mostly, the Japanese people often say that they are wearing a "social mask", something they elaborate to match the society's standards; so their humanity is partly hidden and even forgotten in certain situations. For these reasons, robots are not shocking in the Japanese landscape. Have a look at these pictures of old samurai and "live dolls" : who seems to be the human, who looks like a fake one ?

To read : "In Japan, robots are people too", CNET News

Holidays !!! Deeply desired holidays... First stop on the way to Southern France : Limoges, the capital of quiet, rural and empty central region of France. The best place to buy china - after China... Actually, the town is not very beautiful in the day light, but by night, it becomes a magical and golden city.

ここはリモージュという町です。フランスの中心で、とても静かですいている所です。夜の時本当にきれいになります。

Saint-Cirq Lapopie is said to be the most beautiful village in France. I am at least sure that it's the most beautiful village I have ever seen. Pink roofs under the sun, wild nature around, amazing view on the valley... It looks like a place extracted from Heroic Fantasy, from Hayao Miyazaki's mind, from your dreams...

Place Vendome is the symbole of "chic" in Paris. Diamonds, great hotels, artificial lights... and no one around... Who has money enough nowadays to buy the stuff they sall at Place Vendome ? Who is interested in admiring there some expensive pieces of jewellery, when you can see the same ones in any big city in the world or through the Internet ? The Place turned into a bright, dead, meaningless an cold thing - just as a diamond.

As if I had not enough with the cultural gap between France and Japan, I decided to add a third component to complete the equation : Mali. This is where I go to work everyday from now, if you consider the Embassy as a part of the Malian territory.
How many Malians in Japan ? For the people who really leave here, there are around 90 people - and a large part of them are related to the Embassy's staff. It seems a very tiny drop in the Japanese sea (120 million people on these islands) but it's a lot compared to the number of Japanese leaving in Mali : only 12 people. It's almost comic to imagine them. If one of them comes to read this blog, please leave me a message, I am looking forward to hearing from you.

So I started working at the Embassy of Mali in Shinagawa-ku, not far from Meguro station.
I am still discovering my job, but my main mission is to take English and French communications in charge and to liaise with the related institutions : the Malian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ones of all the Asian countries covered by the jurisdiction of the Embassy, the Embassies and consulates of French speaking countries and so on.
It's something new for me to care about other countries but only Japan. For the first time, I consider another country as something I should study and be interested in. Looking back to the West again !

Who said that market studies were boring ? Last week, to learn more about the French-style bakeries in Japan, I went to the far-away Hadano (one hour by train from Shinjuku by Odakyu line, until Tokaidaigaku-mae station) in order to interview Jinbo-san, the owner of the bakery "Le Lourdes". Me and my colleague have been treated like family, and it was great to listen to the Japanese "pan-ya-san", to learn about his story and his bread, to understand how different the market is between France and Japan.
After tasting the best "pain de mie" ever (without sugar, without oil... only an original making process to transform the flour into the nicest bread), we had a walk into the close fields. Jinbo-san works with local bio-cultivators focusing on organic and natural products. We talked a lot about the French consumption, the Japanese one, the trends, the needs... How couldn't we be touched by these talkative guys, who carry the French flag in their truck ? I give you the image of mutual interest.

最近東京の郊外のパン屋に行きました。日本のパン屋について市場分析をしていますので、オナーに色々聞きたかったです。パン屋さんはとても優しくて、興味深い説明をもらいました。パン屋の後で麦畑を見に行きました。ビオの野菜や麦など見られたし、農耕者とよく話したし、面白い写真を取れました。とても楽しくて、色々な勉強できました。

Having a picnic at Yoyogi Park almost every week during Spring is a must-do when you live in Tokyo. And bring many beers. This is a must-have. And prepare yourself to play the "Yamanote Game" and its many variations - for the ones who don't know, the Yamanote Game consists in saying the name of the different stations of the Yamanote Line that makes a circle around Tokyo (like Shinjuku, Shinagawa, Nihombashi, Ueno...), one after another ; the first person who repeats the station someone already said, or who cannot answer anymore, has to live the game. You can play the game with names of famous people (actors, sportmen...), capital cities, sports... whatever. It seems simple but not so much, actually. Just try at your next picnic !

今週末は本当にいい天気だから、友達と代々木公園ピックニックをしに行きました。山手線ゲームを始めてしました。楽しかったです。春のピックニックをエンジョイしましょう！

This gorgeous yukata is a present from my Fantastic Friend A.

This is the season of yukata. Many women, and a few men, are wearing them on the street by night - some of them going to a matsuri, some of them just wearing it for the pleasure to feel a bit special, in harmony with summer.

For a little French girl like me, putting on a yukata by myself is not exactly easy. Fortunately, Youtube gives tips bout the way to make it stands on you (without any button, any pin, any zip. Japanese Magic). You can learn how to put it on here, and for the obi this is here.

I can say that I am now an expert in obi-tying, but keeping my yukata tight on me is still a challenge. Anyway, it worked for one night !

Pieces of me in yukata

Who masters the obi, uuh ?

We live in a dangerous country, they say. A country with earthquakes, typhons, tsunami. Yakuza. Old people. MOSQUITOS. Whatever.

Me and my colleagues we have been invited to this training organized by our area, Shinagawa-ku, in order to learn how to stop a fire and providing first aid to heart-attacked people. For the first part, I already did it with my ETP friends tw years ago, but I was the most interested in learning how to use a AED. It reminds me my friend Chris who sells this kind of little things. Hey ! I can use it now ! (although I don't really want to, it does not automatically save lives...).

We have been very brave and met the volunteers at 8am, on a rainy Sunday morning. I have been waken at 7:00 by a little earthquake, just to be in the mood : Japanese people are sooo well organized.

Our nice volunteer guide

She said I was a good girl when I answered "yes, sure, I love cooking". And she talked about his son whois a lawyer, saying very quickly "and married", with a "sorry" looking smile. Well, I was not going to jump on him, you know.

Most of these firemen are... volunteers. Unbelievable.

Me against the fire (I guess it's a bit more difficult with a real fire ans smoke everywhere)

In case of a big earthquake with many victims like in Tohoku in last March, the doctors have to give the priority to the people they have a chance to save. If the body wears a black card, it means that the person is not going to live very long. So unfortunately, if everyone is busy, no cares will be given. Then the green, yellow and red cards give an idea of the gravity of the wounds, from light to very heavy.

Simulation of level 7 earthquake, like in March. You just can't stand up. Note that the only Japanese of our group quietly check information on his smartphone.

The best part : How to use defibrillator. So if you plan to have an heart-attack, do it near a defibrillator, and when I'm around.

Disaster maybe, but we'll have a group pic at the end anyway. It's Japan !

Yep. Everything is under controle.

Or the Beauty overdose.

OK : I think I have added this place to the list of the places I prefer in the world. It's just amazing. If you have a chance, you really have to go and see Chokoku no Mori Museum, at Hakone, 2h30 by Odakuy lines from Shinjuku station (details below). The perfect destination for a summer week-end. You're not going to regret it, even if, like me, you don't especially fancy contemporary art - there, the way the pieces of art are displayed is so perfect, so beautiful... I really got a shock contemplating these unexpected shapes, especially in the nature, like this... like gods, or fairies... wow. Have a look !

So, this is the concept : about 120 works by famous scuptors from all over the world - Japanese, American, Canadian, Italian, French, Hungarian, Argentine... among others, from Rodin to Niki de St Phalle - are hiding in the nature. You just have a stunning walk and enjoy every corner of every bush.

Hakone amazing landscape

I had the feeling my eyes were not wide enough for all this beauty, or maybe my brain.

Aesthetic shocks

Nature is female, and so is inspiration, if you trust the many curvy figures of this amazing museum.

Women

There were also many funny stuff in this park, it was not about being serious all the way long.

UFOs

The best play-ground ever, designed by a Canadian artist. But why is it always reserved for the kids ?? Great artists, let us adults have fun too ! Make it more resistant !

The stars of the Museum

Achille Talon et la Main du Serpent

At the end you don't know anymore who is here to be watched, and who is the public.

Family visiting

Lovers...

And also Van Gogh.

Finally, my very favourite parts. The first work is called Symphonic Sculpture (by Gabriel Loire) ; it was a tower you enter in to discover the one of most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Colors, colors, colors - and light. It reminds you the most joyful side of churchs, of faith, of customs and traditions, but at the same time this is something else, this is only pure beauty.

The second one gives a radically different atmosphere, but I liked it so much too : a kind of white paradise, between the Japanese stone-gardens and the contemplatio of the sea. As it was in a gallery, the air was a bit cold, and it suited the art works perfectly.

You got it, you absolutely have to go an see by yourself if you live in the surroundings of Tokyo. I guess that the Museum changes wonderfully with the seasons, and it's opened 365 days from 09:00 to 17:00. Want to taste a bit of contemporary sculpture in Japan ? Chokoku no mori !

Chukoku no Mori Bijutsukan - Hakone Open-air Museum

Admission : 1600 yen (adult)

Access : Shinjuku JR station > Odakyu Line to Odawara station > Hakone Odakyu Line in the direction of Gora, to Chokoku no mori station (total : about 2h30 by train, 1500 yen)

This Sunday, as it was part of my New Year good resolutions, I went to say hello to the bust of my great, great idol : I give you Mr. Lafcadio Hearn. If afterlife exists, this guy is in my top-ten list of the people I want an appointment with when I arrive. Of course I need to see a few others before, like my grandma I never had the pleasure to meet for example - family first - but I will definitely give a call to Lafcadio right after.

... Okay, you have no clue who this gentleman can be. I know. But he should be a legend for all the people who have a sailor's soul and a neverending apetite for new landscapes. Not only he was an amazing writor who wrote dozens of books including analysis of French peotry, linguistic papers and children tales, but also he was an inspiring globe-trotter and his travel notes are so deep I could have drown when I read it.

To summarize the crazy life of this crazy guy, let's say first that he was born in 1850, from an Irish dad and a Greek mum. Apparently Daddy married Mummy secretly and when she had the baby the father and brother got so hungry they fought Daddy to almost-death; finally the couple could escape and take a boat for Ireland. What a beginning. Unfortunately Daddy abandonned wife and child to make his career in India and the Greek mum got so depressed in this over-raining Ireland she left the child to the tyrannic grand-mother. So he grew up basically without parents, and with few love. In order to make his childhood even a bit more romanesque, he got injuried and became half-blind. No, this is not a Dickens novel, it is the truth.

Anyway, even unappy as a kid, he received a top-level education in France (he he) and started studying the French literature closely. But life was hell and he decided to go and see America, so he took a boat hoping that his brother-in-law (the husband of his sister his Dad had with a second wife) could help him to get in a job in Cincinatti. But when he rang the bell, the nice brother just gave him a 5-dollars note and a "good luck". No money, no family, lost in the US... But Lafcadio was amazingly smart and he got employed by Henry Watkin, a quite progressist printor. Quickly, he revealed himself to be more than a simple assistant and launched his own research project, especially about the black ghettos - an amazing guy, I told you. There, he fall in love with a black woman, and married her, but had to leave her and the city because mixed weddings were forbidden at that time. It could have been enough for one life, but no. Then he went to New-Orleans, Louisiana, and started to write about vaudoo, French Opera, Creole culture and cuisine - the first official Creole cooking book ! En français, s'il vous plait ! This man was so open-minded, so multitasking, especially for the XIX century !... - but also the politic responsability for poverty and diseases, crimes, and so on.

Then Lafcadio was sent to the West Indies, and he has been living there for three years. It's fascinating to read his travel notes and personal diaries and letters at that time, because first his new life seems to free his body : sun, spices and naked bodies opened for him a whole world of new sensation that I can imagine after his previous lives in rainy Ireland, grey Paris and gloomy New Orleans. But finally he found himsself lacking for intellectual challenges ; life was too sweet, too easy, and he needed excitement... So he decided to go to... Japan. Tadaaaaam !

I mean, Japan. In 1890.Can you just imagine how was Japan looking like at that time ?

People like us who had always landed in Narita airport, after a oh-my-god-that-was-too-long 12-hours flight, will never know. We will never know what it could represent for someone to go to Japan at that time. And here appears some of my favorite books about Japan : "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan" and "Japan : an Attemp at Interpretation", by Lafcadio Hearn. And his travel notes about his "first steps in Asia" are fabulous too. The most crazy is : everything he wrote is still totally true. For example, when he describes his emotion walking on a street covered with "advertisements" painted on the walls, on the roofs, on posters, on fabric; with kanji, kanji, kanji everywhere. And first he could not understand what was written, so he was just amazed by their beauty but he also remarked that it would be something terrible to be able to read them and feel trapped - he imagines them covered with latin letters and he feels bad, ha ha... And it was exaclty what I felt the first times in Shibuya : thanks goodness, the beauty of the writing compensates the commercial pressure !... Another funny story : at one moment he says there is no way to avoid shopping here, and he already bought a full luggage of "souvenirs" so he is anxious to know if he will have to pay an additionnal fee for the weight when he leaves the country... Remind me something... And many random observations that can not leave my heart, like the comparison between the Japanese women's feet in their tabi with the pretty legs of a faun... I think of this image everytime I see tabi now.

Well, his books about Japan are pure jewels and you have to read some of them (not all, it's impossible). He even became the first non-Japanese Japanese language teacher at Tokyo University (wow), got the Japanese nationality (wow-WOW) and married a Japanese lady (oh). He is famous in Japan for his traditionnal ghost stories, and legends, but under his Japanese name of Koizumi Yakumo, so many of my Japanese friends even did not know that he was not a native. He stayed in Japan until he died in 1904.

Lafcadio was a pure genius, and a real Japan-lover. Everything he wrote about this country and this society is mind-stricking and soul-opening and I admire this guy more than I can say, especially in English.

This is why, I had to go to this tiny little garden between Shin-Okubo station and Meiji-dori they call "Koizumi Yakumo Garden" and bend the knee in front of my hero. The garden was not especially beautiful but I liked the statue. Next time I will go to his grave.

A few dark clouds, however. Even if Lafcadio Hearn found a real home and a family in Japan, as well as a constant source of inspiration, there were some moments he became sick of being there. A Japanese writor said that in Japan, his Greek temperament and his French culture became froze-bitten like a flower in winter. But my concern is more about these words he had about the Japanese :

"What is large about them? His poems, which are only tiny pictures? his deepest sentiments of heroism which he shares with the ant and the wasp ! his romances, mediaevally tiresome, yet without any of the strength of our own medievalism ! Always details, details infinite in number and variety, infinitesimal in character. And to-day, what is his tendency ? To make everything that he adopts small
philosophy, sciences, material, arts, machinery; everything is modified in many ways, but uni formly diminished for Lilliput. And Lilliput is not tall enough to see far. Cosmic emotions do not come to Lilliputians. Did any Japanese ever feel such an emotion? Will any ever feel one ?" (Letter to Basil Hall Chamberlain)

I am disturbed. Cosmic emotions. That's the point.

Oh Lafcadio, at least I am not alone in this.

(a very complete webpage about Hearn's life in French, here)

There is always something new to see around Tokyo. Something new... or ancient ! Thanks to the AFJ's activity program for February, I discovered the "Japan open-air Folk-House Museum" (日本民家園, Nihon Minkaen), in Kawasaki city, gathering no less than 25 old "public houses" (民家, minka) where the Japanese peasants were living together in the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries. In the past, Japan has experienced an almost-communist period, especially in the countryside, where  the people were living in small communities and working in common lands. This spirit is easy to feel inside the beautiful minka from Tohoku, Kanto, or Kanagawa regions. Here is a glimpse for next week's visitors with the AFJ !

To get there : From Shinjuku station, by Odakyu-Odawara line until Mukougaokayuen station (around 25 minutes). Schedules and entrance fees here. Access map here.

Hara House, the jewel of Kawasaki

Nagano Water Mill

Houses from Nanto

Old Tohoku spirit

A Kabuki stage

Culture and Nature are going well together. Not only the houses, but the surrounding forest was delightful.

Frozen pond

Green and happy

A very moving site to discover asap !

Autumne never ends in this country... It's December already, en have a look at what was waiting for me at Rikugien !

Welcome to a typical Edo period garden ! No doubt that the walkers in the ancient times have been inspired by its beauty to write poetry. As fall came late this year, we can enjoy these amazing colors at the fringe of winter. Light is excellent. Contrast is perfect. What else ???