|
Just when I think that Japan cannot possibly offer me any more neon, we crash into Dotombori, the Soho of Osaka. Beware, I am about to head into cliché mode: this street is Just Like Bladerunner. It really is, especially if, like us, you visit on a dark and damp evening. You will find yourselves squinting to see if there are any spacecraft floating around in the skies, or any rogue replicants doing wrong. There are crazy animatronic crabs, shuffling homeless people, gawpers and hawkers, stalls selling the ubiquitous octopus balls, more plastic food that you have ever seen in your life and the fabulous animated neon Glico man. It will make your eyes scream with delight. Pocky, anyone?
Nara
Kay is interviewed by schoolgirls who want to practise their English. Shortly afterwards she is bitten by a deer (.mov, 2.1mb). On this day we see many shrines and wear our feet down to the bone. There is Wisteria. There is a giant shrine. There are horrible boy kids taunting the lovely deer who wander freely. A British woman hectors passers-by to get out of her frame, she wants to take a picture of a shrine, a photograph that will have no people in it and which conveys the serene beauty of the place. She carps and complains. She wants a fantasy memory of this busy place that’s heaving with tourists. We deliberately stand in her frame and wait fatly and whitely and stupidly for a few moments.
In Osaka we visit Spa World.
Here's a little film about the beautiful neon of Osaka (.mov, 4.3mb)
And maybe you'd like to see Kay getting bitten by a deer (.mov, 2.1mb)
|
 |
