Ink drawings from Tokyo 2019

I was cleaning my studio lately and found the sketchbook with these drawings from my 2019 Tokyo trip. It seems I was going to publish a post about these, but when I checked, the post was in ‘draft’ phase so it looks like I must have not done so after all.

When I was on my way out of Tokyo I had a few hours to spend before my plane took off. Before going to the airport, I settled in at a cafe and started drawing some of my photos from the trip with an ink pen.

The drawing above was from some gates I saw near Akihabara. I am not sure exactly where this was.

The drawing below is from Nezu Gardens, which I thought was very pretty and in a wonderful neighborhood. It was a bit of a challenge to do this in only blank ink, while the different greens of the area were so exciting.

This last drawing was from a waterway in Shin Koenji, where I stayed during my trip. I was lucky to be in Tokyo during cherry blossom season - I’d never been to Tokyo before so everything was new, it was even more new and special with the blossoms everywhere. This photo was from my last day in Tokyo, where I had almost ran out of museums to go to. I hung out near a playground where this photo was taken, and then I got on the metro to go to the airport and back to the US.

Nezu Museum Gardens

While on my way to Nezu and waiting to cross a street, two rushing, flexing Lambourghinis (Dark purple and brilliant cobalt blue) blazed past, and a man walking a poodle with a Fendi shirt and a Louis Vuitton scarf trotted up next to me, waiting for the Lambourghinis to race away and for the crosswalk to open up.

Pangs of simultaneous fancy car and fancy Fendi poodle envy struck me, and I felt some kind of guilt at not lavishing enough attention on my own poodle back at home.

Ginza, in effect, floored me as much as Roppongi, where it felt like some alternate-reality product between Aspen and the ever-chrome River Oaks in Houston. It’s like Beverly Hills on eleven. Ginza was also the only neighborhood in Japan that I visited where I saw people running and exercising. I’m not sure why this was - maybe the other districts were more dedicated to fashion, shopping, and museums - but in Ginza, I found myself shuffling out of the way several times for speedy runners with extremely cool-looking shoes.

By the time I had reached Nezu, I was exhausted from watching Lambourghini races and bedazzled by Fendi poodles. Even cushioned by Newton Running shoes, my feet felt flat and used up. Yet, I didn’t think about my feet at all though as I walked through Nezu gardens. Thinking didn’t happen.

Visitors had placed 1 and 5 yen coins atop Buddha’s head and hands. I found myself wondering who had placed the coins, and who eventually moves them. It seemed like a task that would be conducted by a spirit in the earliest morning hours.

Many wells and bridgesides at Nezu gardens glitter with yen donations from local and international patrons.

The Nezu museum contained many art treasures and I was lucky to see an exhibit dedicated entirely to lotuses in Buddhist art. While no photos were allowed of the museum, the gardens allowed cameras.

Yet, photos barely do this place justice. The peace and quiet of Nezu gardens that doesn’t fully make it through in these photos, at least.

Though struck through with a webbed grid of metro rails and roads, all of Tokyo only murmurs. Like a slumbering, horizonless giant, it’s a surprisingly quiet city where you could hear a cherry blossom petal fall to the ground. Walled off from an already-hushed metropolitan city, Nezu gardens are quiet within quiet. Thundering Lambourghinis and Fendi-clad poodles might as well be happening on another planet.

Related Blogs:

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

Animate in Akihabara

Who wrote this?

Roppongi Cherry Blossoms