I often have to ponder about my place in Japan.  I sometimes really struggle with the fact that I am not Japanese and that I do not easily fit into society here.  But then again, I went though these same struggles wherever I lived in the states too.  So in the end, I struggle with these thoughts about society wherever I go.

I can look out my window and see the bay wedged in between the buildings, and the bridges.  If the wind is blowing in the right direction I can hear Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum float over from Tokyo Disney World, which is actually in Chiba Prefecture.  The mix of the world that I inhabit here is insanely boring, thrilling and ultimately surreal.

I was feeling sun deprived on this beautiful Sabbath day, so I grabbed my camera, and in shorts and a tee shirt hit my neighborhood.  I wasn’t the only one that was out enjoying the beautiful weather.  The park that sits only two blocks from my home was crammed full of people.

I just kept walking and this phrase kept popping into my head, “The Odd Reality of My Surroundings.”  I am not sure why, but those words seem to sum up my relationship with my own neighborhood.  My neighborhood is nothing special to most people.  It has its 7-11s and supermarkets.  It has homes, and large danchi structures, but it is my hood.  It is where I have called home now for more than 10 years.

Sometimes life just throws some thoughts into my head that the only way I can sort them out is though my camera.  I don’t know why, but it is often the only therapy that works.

So, I welcome you all to the Odd Reality of My Surroundings.

As I was walking through a buddhist temple on my way back to the train, my eyes drifted to the roof of the temple.  My eyes kept on wandering over the roof until I encountered a sky so blue that I thought that I might be dreaming.  The sky was an amazing shade of blue.  Like those caribbean seas I swam in down in Jamaica.  The sky was painted this hue.  And across that sea of blue were rows of white clouds.  They had been pulled by the wind and stretched into long rows like that of planted garden.  It was an amazing to just be still and look up into the sky.

It was a surreal moment.  Was I really there?  Was it just a fragment of dream that surfaced in my waking hours?  Does it matter if it was?

I do not have the answers.  All I know is that there was truth in that shade of blue.  A truth that touched my soul.

This is not the glossy image of Shibuya that is splashed across glossy magazines.  This is the Shibuya that I know.  The dirty backstreets, where one can get lost in the variety of vices offered up if you have the yen to pay for it.