Tokyo Times

The sight of Tokyo commuters reading newspapers is a rare one these days. And the sight of little lads similarly engrossed in the latest news is rarer still.

This old lady’s bewilderment was thankfully only brief, as after a quick smile she was straight back into corralling all her beer crates. But having passed by this spot more times than I’d care to remember, to finally get an interesting photo made for a particularly memorable five hundredths of a second.

Tokyo has no shortage of laundrettes, ranging from old, rundown places, all the way to fancy new enterprises that are far more cafe-like than merely functional. Yet despite such variety, the rather bleak locker and coin laundry double bill below remains genuinely unique in its appearance.

I’ve photographed this old lady in her very little shop before. Her similarly cramped neighbours too. But this time I was treated to a smile that seemed bigger than the almost ludicrously small surroundings.

Keen to cover new ground and enjoy Hokkaido’s cooler temperatures, a friend and I spent several days towards the end of August travelling the island’s eastern coast by local train. There was no real agenda as such. No tourist places to tick off. Just a semi-random exploration of the area’s smaller towns and villages, or occasionally, when connections dictated, the quieter side of bigger settlements.

Some of the trip’s resultant photos have appeared on these pages already, and one or two of them have been included here, as they seemed to fit a broader selection quite well. But basically, the chosen images are a fairly good representation of what we saw, and in many ways, what we set out to see.