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Nov 18 2020 17 Comments

Tokyo past, present and continuous?

Tokyo is constantly, very visibly changing, and yet in many ways, it looks and remains exactly the same.

changing and yet never changing tokyo

Categorized: Culture, Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Linda Lombardi says

    11/18/2020 at 8:40 am

    Love the wall on the left – so much going on.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/18/2020 at 5:01 pm

      Yeah, there really is. Possibly original, or perhaps just to patch things up after the demolition.

      Reply
  2. Coli says

    11/18/2020 at 12:48 pm

    Nice 753 picture. Gives me a very warm feeling 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/18/2020 at 5:06 pm

      Cheers. It was doubly nice to get a non-conventional shot of it.

      Reply
  3. LAObserver says

    11/18/2020 at 1:30 pm

    Reminds me of a quote from the TV series Traffik: ‘everything changes and everything stays the same.’ As long as the ladies of Nippon keep wearing their kimonos, the second part of that quote will ring true.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/18/2020 at 5:10 pm

      That sums it up perfectly, and thankfully I’m pretty sure the kimono will continue to be worn.

      Reply
  4. Stephan says

    11/18/2020 at 1:32 pm

    Great timing. Love the contrast!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/18/2020 at 5:12 pm

      Thanks. Very happy with the contrast that backdrop offers.

      Reply
  5. cdilla says

    11/18/2020 at 6:23 pm

    A perfectly timed and superbly crisp capture. Love the way they are in step and you click mid step. Wish I could do that.
    My minds eye sees an old wooden building flickering in the vacant plot, and in time with it the cones/ropes/stick and womans mask disappear and the girls shoes change to something more traditional.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/19/2020 at 6:29 am

      Thank you. I’d like to say it’s skill, but they were striding past pretty fast, so only had chance to get off one shot, and thankfully it was at just the right time.

      Yes, there’s a lot of history there. Most of it gone, but still there in some way.

      Reply
  6. john says

    11/19/2020 at 1:59 am

    I was initially drawn to the wonderful Kimono greys and now see the red and grey reflected in the background …to scale!! That is really neat!

    The ‘flickering’ recalls to hand the work of Shinji Tsuchimochi’s (the book was within reach) ‘things just beyond our vision’. https://shinjitsuchimochi.wixsite.com/wabisabipop.

    Reply
    • cdilla says

      11/19/2020 at 5:38 am

      I’ll have to look out for that one. I have “100 Views of Tokyo” – wonderful everyday scenes peppered with a lovely array of tiny surreal characters. I love the book partly because about a third of the locations I recognise from having seen them first hand often from the same spot. This one for example: we only came across that bridge last december having walked towerds the tower from the German Christmas Fair.
      https://preview.tinyurl.com/y3pvfjk7
      Didn’t see the floating cat though 🙂

      Reply
    • john says

      11/19/2020 at 6:21 am

      The book is (also) ‘100 Vistas de Tokio’ (The Spanish edition!). There’s a later compilation ‘Ukiyo’ that I haven’t yet seen.
      That cat is a momonga wannabee :O)

      Reply
      • Lee says

        11/19/2020 at 7:06 am

        Nice one. Cheers. A timely reminder to check that out again.

        Reply
  7. Mr. Pedantic says

    11/23/2020 at 2:39 am

    From the title of this posting, I imagine you must have some connection to language teaching.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      11/23/2020 at 8:02 pm

      I have done my fair share…

      Reply
      • Mr. Pedantic says

        11/23/2020 at 10:49 pm

        There is no such thing as a fair share of language teaching. Only too much.

        Reply

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