Japan-niversary

Today makes 10 years since I first went to Japan to work there for a year. Ah yes, on the hot and humid Sunday of August 5, 2001, I arrived in Tokyo, a city I had seen on-screen many times. Having spent many evenings with my uni mates watching anime videos, it was crazy to think I was now in the same country all those bizarre animated adventures had taken place in.

Okay, enough reminiscing – let's dip into the archives and post something with a Japanese flavour to it, shall we? Yes.

This is a 2008 drawing of the Villa Aoyama, the apartment building I lived in. It was a new-ish building with many rice fields and a river behind it, and mountains behind that. I went back there in December 2007 with my teacher friend Kaz.


A Christmas winter market in Osaka. It was German-themed (hence the sign), with a merry-go-round and some classical music playing. Note that there were many more people there than I have shown in this fineliner drawing.


In Tokyo, even the cars have a crazy fashion sense. My friend Yoji and I were in a noodle house when this bad boy pulled up outside the window. I couldn't make sense of the signs plastered all over it, but the figurines mounted on the bonnet were certainly eye-catching.