Photography

When it rains in Tokyo, the city isn’t only awash with water, but also the now ubiquitous transparent umbrella. A cheap and cheerful option that can create a slightly unreal window, into a similarly synthetic world.

Not some unidentifiable sea dweller dished up as a quick meal. No sickly goldfish destined to be dead by morning either. But rather some beautifully coloured and surprisingly blue-eyed koi.

Girls doing their make-up on the train is a regular sight in Tokyo; young women who unabashedly go about their business despite the quiet but uncomfortable congestion around them.

Doing the same thing plonked down on the pavement, however, isn’t nearly so common, although in Kabukicho, Shinjuku’s infamous red light district, it perhaps shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise.

Together, and yet very much alone, as the tide slowly came in.