The neighbourhood may well have seen better days, but that definitely doesn’t mean one can’t add a bit of colour and character when out on a Sunday saunter.
A comical little kid, in a Pooh Bear outfit, in an old part of Tokyo
Christian worship, Tokyo style
Definitely no spire. No stained glass windows either. In fact there aren’t even any bells. Well, apart from the one connected to the door that is. But, this tiny church in room 303 does follow one custom — services every Sunday.
A Tokyo host and hostess getting intimately acquainted?
For anyone who has seen the fascinating, The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief, the depressingly cyclical nature of Japan’s host and hostess business will be horribly familiar. Scores of young women who make good money flattering or otherwise servicing men, then go on to quickly recycle their gains at similarly cynical host clubs. A practice that arguably sums up the lonely, destructive nature of Japan’s vast adult entertainment industry.
But, after a very long night, these two at least found some company.
Regardless of the possible financial cost.
Remnants of a man’s life in a rotting hotel room
Unlike long vacant homes and schools, abandoned hotels tend to contain very few reminders of the people who worked or stayed in them. And the Tower Hotel, which can be seen here, was no different, with room after room of faded hope and lost guests.
Except one that is, as tucked away in a dark corner of the building was a space once occupied by Kanbe Tadashi.
Whether he was actually living there it’s hard to say, but judging by all the stubbed out cigarettes, it’s a room where he certainly spent a good deal of time. However, with the hotel closing, finding a new job at the very least would have been a necessity. An undoubtedly stressful time that quite likely saw him spend a lot of time sat here. Smoking heavily. And silently staring out of the window. All the while wondering where he would end up next.
Perhaps sometimes looking at his reflection in the mirror too. Each and every time dealing with the horrible realisation that he wasn’t getting any younger, and work would be increasingly difficult to come by.
But, with interviews hopefully beckoning, and future work of some description in the service industry ahead, leaving several of his suits behind doesn’t seem to have made any sense. Clothes that appear to hint at an ending of sorts, but an end to what it’s impossible to say.
The morning after the very long Tokyo night before
That drunken, falsely confident feeling of, ‘one more can’t do any harm, I’ll be fine’, generally results in a sore head, or more often than not, horrors far worse. Times when the comfort of a bed and the shaky embrace of feeling sorry for oneself slowly but surely win out the day. But how much those horrors must be magnified when waking up. In daylight. Outside a grotty convenience store. Really doesn’t bear thinking about.
