Kiyosumi Garden, Tokyo

kiyosumi-001

Almost exactly 2 years ago today, October 23 2012, I was on the first full day of my third trip to Japan, a month-long excursion I called “Nerdtour 2012” (I blogged it on this site).  One of the best places I went was this little slice of old Tokyo park design, called Kiyosumi Garden.  It was just about 1 or 1.25 miles up the road from the apartment I stayed at, and my buddy John had been there before, so on a somewhat rainy day we set off to see this.  It’s a nicely laid-out park, with a large pond or small lake in the middle, beautiful landscaping, and more turtles in one place than I had seen in a long time!  I took this picture of a couple having their picture taken, I don’t know if they were models, or of they were a genuine couple preparing to get married.  Either way, it was a stroke of luck getting this shot from across the lake, given it had been raining off and on with breaks in the clouds allowing the sun to shine.  I plan to go back sometime in the next year, if all goes well, if not, then the year after.  There is so much more of Japan to see!

BTW, I wrote a small photo book that you can buy on Blurb.com!

A little old school dancing…

Screen Shot 2014-10-19 at 3.27.24 PM

Strolling through the Youtube archives is one of my favorite pastimes, since you never know what you’ll come across. I knew James Cagney could dance, even though he also played gangsters and other tough guys in the old movies, but I never knew that Bob Hope could hold his own in tap-dancing. If I had ever seen the movie “The Seven Little Foys” I would have learned better. This is a great scene with Hope playing Eddie Foy and Cagney playing George M. Cohan, doing a tap-dance “face-off”, and it is a joy to behold. Today’s pop-and-lock dancers do similar competitions with each other, but these guys were hitting it 60 years ago! If you watch closely there’s a part where Hope almost does a “moonwalk” while tap-dancing.

Enjoy!