A few minutes ago Guardian photographer David Levene sent me this link. Just made my day! I will blog more later about the use of audio recorders and taking shots for slideshows, but for now I think I’ll just chill out and smile.
Once you have chosen the car you need to do some paperwork… First the car dealership takes a photocopy of your Japanese driver’s license and, in my case, my gaikokujin toroku shomeisho (certificate of alien registration – a.k.a gaijin card). You then need to get an inkan (personal seal) made, register it at the city office, then bring the inkan and the inkan toroku shomeisho (certificate of name stamp registration) to the car dealership. Also bring your gaikokujin toroku genpyo kisai jiko shomeisho (certified copy of registration) which shows your official address. Fill out the parking application paper, drawing a diagram of your local streets and the exact dimensions of the parking area at your house or apartment. If you are not the owner of the house you must also produce a piece of paper from the housing office with their official stamp to show you have parking permission. Parking applications must be taken to the local police station for processing although your car dealer may do this for you. This is all done to get a shako shoumei …
Stage 1 – Find a car The first thing you will notice when trying to buy a used car in Japan is that almost nobody sells their own car. Old cars are scrapped or tend to be given away to a friend or relative. Cars that still have some value, are usually traded in when purchasing a new (or newer) model. Outside of the foreign community, there seem to be very few private sales. You don’t see cars with the Japanese equivalent of FOR SALE signs in the window. Used car magazines and even internet auctions are almost entirely filled with cars being sold by dealers rather than individuals. Having to purchase from a used car dealer makes things more expensive, but does mean they can help you with Stage 2 – the labyrinthine process of producing and filling out the correct paperwork. I browsed through the various internet sites and a few cars caught my attention. These are a few of the cars that were of interest, but not quite what I wanted: Honda NSX …
Tomorrow my little Mazda Miata will make it’s final journey down to a garage in Itoman where I shall say goodbye. It is not long for this world, but its passing will allow other Miatas to live long and happy lives. This afternoon Keith Gordon of Ryukyu Underground came over to my house in his Miata for some open air surgery. The two cars were parked side by side and over the course of the afternoon, the door panels, center console, battery and and a power window motor were transplanted from my little silver roadster to his little green roadster. It was great to help out a friend, and to see some use come for the various still functional parts of the car. I do, however, hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow as my driver’s side window is now permanently open.
In 2000, Sefa Utaki, along with Shuri Castle and several castle ruins from the Kingdom of the Ryukyus, was listed as UNESCO world heritage site. Sefa Utaki is the holiest place in Okinawa where the kikeo kimi high priestesses would perform rituals. There are several places of worship hidden among the trees, but the most famous is at the triangle shaped opening. Water that dripped from stalactites hanging from the rock faces was thought to be sacred. Pots were positioned on the ground, and remain today catching the slow drip drip drip of holy water. Tourists rather than priestesses are the main visitors to Sefa Utaki now. I had to wait a while before I could get a tourist free wide angle shot.
When I get a roll of film back from processing, I use a loupe and lightbox to check the images. I then scan the best shots, sleeve, label and file them away in humidity controlled cabinets. Bad shots get thrown in the trash, but there are quite a few which are either too similar or don’t quite make the grade for some reason. These get put in a big box, and pretty much forgotten about. Occasionally when putting new shots in the box I spot an old rejection and on further inspection decide is deserves a scan. This shot is from the amazing Edinburgh Tattoo. I had a press pass so that I could get right up above the spectators among the floodlights as well as taking shots at ground level. Initially I think the movement in the Union flag on the top of the castle was the reason I rejected the image, but on further inspection I think the shot still works. You can even see the muzzle flash from the cannon …
Got up this morning went into the kitchen, ground some beans, stuck them in the coffee machine’s little gold filter funnel, filled the reservoir with water and swtiched it on. Normally I have granola, but today I grabbed an unopened box of Frosties and popped it on the kitchen counter. I went to turn on the computer and check the news while the coffee machine did its magic. Five minutes later, having read that a North Korean ballistic missile was about to be fired over (or possibly into) Japan, I returned to the kitchen. I was greeted with the smell of fresh coffee and …. There were two suspects. Pudding was fast asleep. Bear was racing around the kitchen with a mad gleam in her eyes. I picked up the trash, then had my cup off coffee with a piece of toast.
First some background… Although I learned to drive when I was 17, I didn’t have my own car. I would pootle around in my mother’s Rover Metro. It got my climbing buddies, Stewart and Jack, and me out to places like Stanage Edge and the Lake District on weekends. It did exactly what my dad said a car should do – get you from A to B. At university and for several years after I never owned a car. It wasn’t until 2001, a couple of years after moving to Japan I got my very first vehicle. For 70,000 yen (US$ 700) I got my very own monster truck. The Toyota Hilux Surf as demonstrated on Top Gear is usually one of the toughest vehicles on the road. My aging Surf, however, was on its last legs, the old turbo diesel engine would whine as it slowly built up momentum to it’s top speed of 80 kilometers an hour. The limited speed was however a bonus as the worn breaks, knobbly tyres and spongy suspension …
A couple of years ago I met David Levene a photographer for The Guardian. It was 5 in the morning and we were both waiting to get in our respective hot air balloons while photographing the Bristol Balloon Festival. We had a good chat for an hour, and I said it would be great to meet again if he ever made if to Japan. I then got in my wicker basket and had my first (and only) balloon ride. It was a great experience and I got a few good photos. A couple of months ago I got an email from David saying he was coming to Japan to get shots for the newspaper, particularly the two page center spreads, which are an amazing showcase for a photographer. Check out this short video to see the kind of work David does. (Then come right back!) David is in Japan for two weeks and came down to Okinawa for 24 hours to get some images of Churaumi Aquarium I talked about in a previous post which …
The Okinawan American Animal Rescue Society OAARS is a fantastic program whose main goal is to find homes for stray and unwanted animals on Okinawa which would otherwise be euthanized ( a polite way of saying killed). I am writing about them here (in a blog that is meant to be predominantly about photography in Japan) because my friends Theresa and Michael saw that there were some labs that needed homes and hoped I’d be interested. As much as I would love another lab, or two or three, Pudding and Bear are quite enough right now. Hopefully, however, there is a reader out there who would love one of these beautiful creatures, and make the dogs, the people at OAARS, Theresa, Michael and myself extremely happy. As an added bonus adopt one of these dogs and you can then come and hang out with Pudding and Bear at the beach! Labrador retrievers are quite possibly the best dogs in the world. They are loving, smart, sensitive, beautiful, playful and have great temperaments (although Bear has some issues). But….. …
