On my way home yesterday evening after a short bicycle recky around the new neighbourhood 2 uniformed high school girls, also on bikes pedalled past me, engaged in mundane school talk. As I trailed behind them the setting sun right in front of us spilled a dazzling golden halo around the 2 girls, the light catching every strand of their billowing hair, illuminating it like stokes of white flame. Had that moment been caught on film it would have made a very fitting, Iwai-ish number.



Anyway, the folks at Tanashi treated me to a sumptous Nabe welcome dinner, Kimchi style. L to R here we have Masako, Maiko, Youngjae and Ryoko. After dinner we embarked on the arduous task of clearing up the fridge ( we have 2 here ), for one of the setbacks of communal fridge usage is that you often find food stashed since the last century, forgotten realms hidden in the dark corners, severed and half decomposed fingers, etc. Thank goodness there were none today other than a mini mushroom farmbed in a tub of yogurt, dating back to Byzantine period.

Below : A shot of my room. Moody eh ?

House moving is slated for the 23rd, a rainy day has been forecasted. I hope the powers that be cut me a break because I've never fancied sleeping on a waterbed. Anyway, a glimpse of my home at Borderless Tokyo for the next 2 years, Kokusaikouryuukyoukai, or International Exchange Society. ( above : a view from my room, Below : Banner at main entrance ) Think a Japanese version of the Spanish Apartment, but with alot less sex. I think. Well they did say they're going to party every month...

I knew the first day when I moved into Domire-Meguro as an avid fan of Iwai Shunji's films that I have found some very special, kindred souls. ( see comparison picture below ). Any self respecting Iwai Shunji fan will no doubt remember the hallmark library window/curtain scene in Love Letter, and Takeshi+Kojima did so much as to install that exact mise en scene in our very own kitchen. What a bunch of Romantics !! :]



As I prepare to move on to my new home come next week at Borderless Tokyo, I shall however remember my memorable and unforgettable days in Domire-Meguro, so lucid they were it seemed just like yesterday.

Believe me when I say that its a once in a lifetime fortitude to have been able to catch the Mucha Exhibition on at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, quite simply because 1) 100 pieces from the exhibition have never been allowed abroad till now, 2) its Mucha, champion of the Art Nouveau movement and 3)I'm his absolute, complete acolyte, right up there with Waterhouse. His advant garde illustration style was light years ahead during his era and even in recent times as countless artists feverishly copied, imitated, duplicated none ever reproduced anything as stunning as did Mucha himself. Even if anyone came close, Mucha would have beaten them a full hundred years ahead. At the end of my visit that day as I was hurried out by the curators my eyes were painfully strained having pored over every single piece of his amazing works.