visitors
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
We met with Blake and Violetta at 10:00 this morning under clear and surprisingly cold skies.
The night before, a cold front had stormed through at around 21:00, and it was only 7ºC as I cycled home from a very important (and hopefully fruitful) business meeting. 7ºC in Tokyo in November. Yikes.
But today it was already a bit warmer and the air was as clear as it gets in Tokyo. We'd arranged to go up to the observation floor at the top of the Metro city hall, and couldn't ask for better conditions.
In fact, it turned out to be simply amazing. Not only could we see Fuji-san, but we could make out the details of the clouds drifting over its shoulders. We could make out distant buildings all over the place, and even see the distant periphery of the city. We could even see the runways at Haneda airport! I've been up there when it was so hazy you could only just see the Tokyo tower, so I was well pleased. Kenny seemed excited by the chance to chum around with new people (as ever) and was fascinated by the strange view of the city (though he'd been there before, it was some six months ago and I'm not sure how sharp his memory is).
Before the observation tower, I'd taken them into a convenience store to get some breakfast. I showed them how to unwrap onigiri and had them try a natto roll. It all seemed good to them—I suppose the years in places like Vietnam and Sudan had prepared them for just about anything.
After the tower trip, we went to nearby Yodobashi camera. Our visitors wanted to buy a new camera as their existing Minolta 5D was dying. They still had two workable lenses, so I suggested the Sony cameras which turned out to be rather good with articulating screens and a generally lightweight feeling to them. While there, I ran down to the basement to buy some more albums for my negatives. I've got 23 rolls to scan and store just from the Shanghai trip. I'm going to need another storage box for the albums, soon!
We parted ways at around 14:00, and I dove into my gigantic to-do list for the various projects I'm involved with. Kenny refused to sleep, however, and the evening eventually detoured into child sitting.