By the time we got to Tokyo, the weather had shifted, and I started to regret my decision to load Fujicolor 100 in my camera. That first weekend ended up being very grey and rainy, and I figured the whole roll would be trashed. That influenced the sort of shots I went for.
But no! It seems my trusty Nikon Lite-Touch with the dinky little flash could handle it, and it even took some really good artistic liberties like with this first shot.
I did switch back to Kodak Color Plus after this roll, but I’m glad I was tempted by a stock I don’t often see in the states. I brought a couple of rolls back with me.
There were a couple of hours of precious sun, though, so I did get to see the intensity of lower ISO film when the conditions are right.
We came here to kill some time before check-in and ended up spending much of it hanging out with mini pigs and otters. A great way to spend a Saturday, if you ask me.
Of course, the very first thing we did upon arrival was to head over to Osawa Camera to process my film from the trip thus far. I’d seen very good reviews about them online and they did not disappoint—they developed and scanned 5 rolls for me in 4 hours. Twice! Everything I’ve been posting was done in Japan. I don’t know the secret of fast turnaround time. Please someone crack the code and apply it in Seattle.
Have you heard of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru? Also known as the Lucky Dragon No. 5, it was a Japanese tuna fishing boat caught in the fallout from the U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954. The crew, unaware they were near the test site, were exposed to massive doses of radioactive ash—the ash of death you see in one of these photos.
One fisherman, Aikichi Kuboyama, later died from radiation sickness, and the contaminated tuna sparked nationwide panic in Japan, fueling anti-nuclear sentiment and protests. The incident became a turning point in Japanese public opinion about nuclear weapons, linking the trauma of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the emerging dangers of Cold War nuclear testing.
The weather was wild the day we visited the Exhibition Hall where the vessel is preserved. You could almost imagine yourself out on the high seas. I expected the air inside to feel heavy, but it was made lighter by the friendly elderly docents who greeted us and asked us where we’re from. I felt like they appreciated our being there, traveling all the way from the belly of the beast to see its handiwork.
Seeing the ship there was absolutely breathtaking; I walked around with the hair on my back standing on end. There’s something about being so up close to an object that large, that scarred by time, that fills you with awe.
I’d plan to explore Yumenoshima Island where the Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall is located, and maybe end up in Odaiba, introducing ourselves to Tokyo’s skyline from the Bay before fully immersing ourselves in it, but the weather just place sucked. So we popped into the Tropical Greenhouse Dome instead. It’s a complex of three interlocking domes that around 1,000 species, including plant life native to the remote Ogasawara Islands, a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site. A nerdy and unexpected way to get out of the rain. Luckily, we were still able to find time to visit the bay near the end of our trip, on a much sunnier day.
A few random snaps from our first night in Tokyo, taken around Akihabara and Roppongi.
One of the bars we went to with @sumiresuzan looked exactly how I remember it from the last time she introduced it to me 11 years ago. It’s like time had stopped and I just kept getting older.
The young bartender wondered if I wanted to switch out the flavors in the Tokyo Iced Tea I’d ordered and I was like “no, I actually like melon soda.”