Watching Over You
I shared the photo below with a friend back in the UK tonight, who commented “how is it even remotely legal to have such a heavily tinted rear screen?”
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This car is an itasha (痛車) literally a painful car. It was as loud aurally as it was visually, so a headache wouldn’t be out of the question. I answered that transit vans don’t have visible rear screens, so I suppose it’s not mandatory? However, one has to remember this is Japan. Just look at that registration plate!
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Here in Tokyo, the filth as they’re sometimes called in the UK, (see entry 1.4) don’t waste their time fining people for having LEDs all around their car… they’re too busy using their megaphones to say “危ないよ！” (it’s dangerous) to people crossing the road in a freestyle manner.
I walk this route almost every night, but the above scenes are now commonplace. If time allows, I do tend to fire off a few shots of the more interesting things, take my time, and begin to look again. I won’t be here forever, so it’s worth taking the time to appreciate (in any form) our surroundings, even if we see them day-in, day-out. I suppose the “take-home message” I want to leave from this blog entry is to take the time to notice things. Notice the way the light hits objects, the shadows, the colours.
Don’t exist - live.