ueno park dusk. a suited man feeds pigeons. a stray cat nestles closer to the ground in hunt position in a nearby flower bed. the tension of anticipation....

some new galleries up include shinjuku gyoen and a bunch of new hanami (cherry blossom) pics, including some night hanami.

i am so happy i moved to tokyo. i can't begin to tell you how alive this city makes me feel.

having (tourist) friends in town helps, of course. a lot of getting out and about and checking out places and things i haven't seen or done before. and let me tell you, there are a million freakin' things to see and do here and i have no plans to leave this place any time soon. seriously. tokyo rocks. i'm glad i had my quiet time in the countryside, i needed the downtime to get over being a jaded bitter and burnt-out music industry hack. i'm ready to get going again....

justin and evette are insane collectors. so they've been scouring the city's best toy and collectable stores. yesterday evening they uttered the words i NEVER dreamed i'd hear... "i'm so sick of toy stores"..... that's after spending time in both the shibuya and (excellent) nakano mandarake, the ueno yamashiroya and a million other incredible shops. one whole corner of my room is a mound of huge paper bags with all manner of consumable crap - from a bunch of new blythe's and associated new costumes (including doc martens, converse sneakers and a leopard print jacket to name just a few items....) to wrestling toys, stickers, posters, books, postcards, t-shirts and a foot -high astroboy doll... don't worry, i will be photographing the mound before they leave.

seems to be quite the tourist season, our house is overflowing with guests - mostly australian. i have justin and evette staying, tim has a whole band of 4 melbournians crushed into his room and dave has a canadian friend with blue hair and matching i-book.

the band are a lovely bunch of fellas from melbourne called function. the evening they arrived we bought a couple of 6-packs of asahi and crammed 7 australians around the kitchen table to share stories for a couple of hours. suddenly i was back on tour in australia, sitting around some kitchen table in melbourne, listening to touring tales of hilarity... they have just played the SXSW music festival in austen texas, a couple of shows in new york, los angeles, london and are on the home leg now. a show in shibuya last night and another one in shimokitazawa on sunday night. but now i'm crossing into a whole new topic, so i'm gonna shut up now and get ready for the next entry and associated photos....