Via the ever eye-pleasing online notebook of sir Karl de la Grange, this delicious Renaissance-era map of Japan in French:
In an odd bit of cartographic precision, Okazaki (in today’s Mie-ken) is specifically annotated as the seat of “the most beautiful women in the country”.
Time to think about the future…
Now that I’m about to regain my freedom, a career in baking or chocolate-making sounds as good as ever…
This ad for a Western-style wedding chapel promise you (in katakana English) “the most dramatic wedding in the world”…
Finally getting around to uploading this small compilation of bouncy jazzy electroswingy tracks I patched together for some party last year:
ElectroSwing Mix:
It’s been forever since the last mix, but I am a few weeks away from freedom and unprecedented amounts of free time… So fingers crossed: I might even resume playing with my home studio (it’s somewhere around number 4 or 5 on my To-do-list-of-freedom, just after sleeping and eating a normal meal).
Amidst the work, chaos and queasiness, a few snapshots of fun and loveliness:
Gavin doing his best impersonation of a mid-90s Ibiza DJ at some improbable makeshift rooftop thai bar in Tokyo, Fang-chan’s enthusiastically taking on a bucket of Hoegaarden at Pig&Whistle’s, 5pm sunset near the house, schnappy crocodile, playful lemurs and jackass penguins at Ueno zoo, remnants of snow in that small cemetery tucked in the back streets of Akasaka… oh yea, and the good ol’ camphor tree wishing me おつかれさま after my defence last week1don’t rush with the congratulations: I do not have the title yet, and I still have to hand in the final version of my thesis in two weeks.