Ruby /// Love, like or hate

Jetlag strikes again, I managed 4 hours sleep so was awake to see the sun come up.

(shiroganedai from my window)

I got into town early, today by subway and had a wander around Rappongi before I met Nao-chan and Yuko-san. Hasd my morning fix of Beckham on the tube!

(beckham-san)

Rappongi is the easiest kanji to recognise on the subway map as it looks like a forest, or collection of trees. It may have been years ago but today is an urban monster with huge redevelopment going on. The last couple of times I visited Tokyo I went to the Rappongi hills Think zone / Mori Art building which is a 65 (roughly) storey, shiny new skyscraper with a massive new gallery being devloped in the pent house. It's going to be good - partnered with Tate and pompidou as long as the funding / commercial investment continues.

(almond, most famous, pink cafe in tokyo)

I waited for the others in almond cafe, a pink meeting spot famous in Rappongi for gai-jin (foreigners). Everywhere is promoting valentines day at the moment, but in Japan only women buy gifts for men and in March on White day teh blokes reciprocate. There are the most intricate chocolates and hearts and everything cuddly on sale. `kawai deu ne!

(where's becks?)

Becks is following me, I still haven't tracked down chocolate Beckham, but Muse company are on the case.
We met up in the exhibition space which is a disused school hall, right in teh heart of Rappongi. The location is excellent and it's interesting to see a shell of a building right next to massive urban redevelopment. We met up with 5 arts management students who will be building the exhibition structure and helping me source furniture to create the room installations for home-Maker. I explained in my best broken japanese the layout and structure. I'm definetly starting to understand more, my ear is slowly tuning in like a radio and I can understand the main theme of conversations, even if I don't catch all the details.

I have a new set of words to confuse: yasashi=easy yasai=vegetable yasui=cheap
I'm managing to use these indescriminately which makes for interesting reactions - this lipstick was very vegetable, etc.

Started on the shashin projections for the exhibition in final cut , before home-maker filming starts on saturday, it's looking really striking - old photographs of the 4 different wards with kanji superimposed and documentary narrative /story underneath.

(nao-chan - moshi moshi)

Nao-chan has been acting as sensei and has been teaching me new japanese every day which is a great help. I learnt how to say 'I have caught old' today, as that is how I feel(too many yaers working with older people!). My back is so bad I feel like a pensioner, have been doing lots of yoga, taking japanese baths and am considering a trip to the accupuncturist. fingers crossed it gets better. Maybe more sleep will help.

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