150/365: Dec 1 2008. Dave Gutteridge is a comedian at the Tokyo Comedy Club. We met through the Dr Sketchy's nights and I was honoured when he asked me to do his headshots for the book he's writing, and for his regular publicity photographs. He came over and we spent a few hours trying a bunch of different things (I used a snoot for the first time - those Strobist tutorials are finally paying off!) and got some great photographs. A fun shoot with a nice guy.

After we finished I made the mad dash into Yurakucho to meet my friend Alfie and head to the Tokyo Foreign Correspondents Club for the opening party of their latest photo exhibition, by the photographers collective Sha-do. Had an excellent night, hung out and drank beer with some amazing photographers and some generally inspirational people doing generally inspirational things. On my way home, on the nice deserted Monday night Chuo, I had to wonder if I'm making the right decision, leaving Tokyo. Anyway, I discussed a photo project I've started with some of the people from the Press Club and they are interested in showing the resulting exhibition there in May. Very cool. Hope I can make it happen.



151/365: Dec 2 2008. I love soba. I really really love soba. I'm really really gonna miss soba when I go. Almost feeling human again after more than a week of sickness. The shocking night cough is keeping me awake but I'm over the worst of it.

152/365: Dec 3. Gloomy weather. But there is always something to make a gal chuckle. This car is parked around the corner from my house, outside some new, very expensive apartments.

153/365: Dec 4 2008. Lovely Lisa and I taught together as team-teachers for 2 years, and we still hang out sometimes. I photographed her wedding back in August. Today we ran into each other, and miraculously, we both had time for a coffee and a chat. It was great to hang out and catch up. So many people I'll miss when I go.

154/365: Dec 5 2008. Cherry Typhoon invited me along to a little cabaret/vaudeville show she was performing (starring) in at the Puk Pupa Teatro in Shinjuku. I hung out with her backstage - which actually was 3 floors under ground, underneath the stage. See the spiral staircase in the background? That is how the performers get up to the stage. Rickety dinky fabulous. The theatre itself is quite famous as a puppet theatre - the building has been standing for 80 years, and the Puk Group has been there for 35 years or so. The old fella who runs the place struck up a lively conversation with me after the show, drowned me in flyers and info about the place. He is utterly passionate about puppetry and marionettes.

155/365: Dec 6 2008. I bought a wireless strobe transmitter and extra strobe light and wanted to practice with it ahead of an important shoot, so I asked my ever-patient roomie, Greg the micro-biologist/geneticist to sit on a stool in front of my lights while I played around. He brought his book in and looked up when required. He considers himself something of a comedian. Perhaps you can see a glimpse of his deadpan humour in this pic?



156/365: Dec 7 2008. I spent most of the day at Legato's, on the 18th floor of a Dogenzaka (Shibuya) building, shooting a room full of kids under the age of 12 dancing and hanging with Santa at the Baby Loves Disco Christmas Party. By sunset things had become pretty quiet (little kiddlies need to crash and burn after a mad day of screaming around a dance floor) and I had some downtime watching the sun go down over the city and Mt Fuji (that's her right in the centre of the photo, on the horizon). Lovely. The picture does it NO JUSTICE at all.

Afterwards I went to a hotel in Yotsuya to hang out with Christians mum, grandpa and a bunch of his family friends visiting from Brisbane, as well as Yuiko's mum and dad. A fun, rowdy night. It was bloody lovely to be sitting inside an insulated apartment. When we walked back to the station the cold was quite breathtaking.

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