summer holiday

It's been a couple of months already, so time to give an update about what's going on here.

First of all, since the last blog was about preparing for Tokyo, let's start with actually going to Tokyo. Stayed in a small hotel, met up with some friends, went to Akihabara a number of times (an area of Tokyo which is known as anime/manga/etc. paradise). Most importantly, I went to visit two craftsplaces, made a number of notes and pictures and got a step further with my research project that way.

I've stayed in Japan for over a year now, but this was my first time in Tokyo. It really feels like the center of Japan, full of tall buildings and shopping areas. There are quiet areas as well of course, but in a different way from Kyoto, which is much more surrounded by nature. The second craftsman I went to though, which was like 1.5 hour from Tokyo center, was really a place in the middle of nowhere. I was lucky enough to had a bus stop close by, but overal it was just fields, mountains and a bit of houses here and there. Interesting to hear the stories of the man I visited on how he build his craftsplace from nothing instead of inheriting it from his father (which is common here). Naturally, living a small village, that gets even more difficult, so he really had to really on internet in the beginning. The first craftsmen was very different: a natural talker, very nice man and happy to explain plenty of things.

I had a lot of fun in a week there and felt like back home after returning to Kyoto. It was the second and last week of the entire campus being closed that my parents came to visit. Except from not showing them my own room (simply because it's particularly uninteresting enough to be fiinished looking in a minute, while it's a half hour walk) I properly fullfilled my role as a good son. Which basically means showing the interesting parts of Kyoto, with a one day trip to Nara as well. It wasn't like the three of were together the whole time, but I made sure they would see the interesting areas that they wouldn't find on their own. The good traditional Japanese foods included of course, but also the way to mount Hiei next to Kyoto, a tour in campus, a shopping mall with a lot of uncommon shops, etc. Anyway, they seemed to be very satisfied and it was fun showing them around a bit.

Next is... A, I finally bought the furniture to turn my appartment room into a decently nice place. Table, chair, couch, cabinet, vacuum cleaner, refrigirator, including transport costs for around 130 euros. Yeah, that's rediculously cheap and you really have to go to Gakusei (student) Recycle to make a deal that nice. All stuff that has been used already, most customers intending to use it temporarily again during university period, bringing it to the same place again after moving out again. I also bought a drawing tablet and a Nintendo 3ds with a few games. Sounds like a lot of money, but the 3ds was a used model for around 30 bucks. The tablet is a small simple model, but new. Slightly expensive, but neccesary because I'm aiming to enter a Japanese gaming company as a digital artist in a few years. Like the Illustration teacher said, I simply have to some practice now, including sketching random ideas out digitally as well.

Luckily, drawing digitally appears to be suprisingly fun and I'm looking forward towards making the next work already. Besides that and the research project, I'm preparing works for an exhibition in October and just returned from Osaka City Museum, where I exhibited one piece. Cool to be in such a big place among almost only experienced older artists, but if you really want to get something out of it, it seems to take a number of years and exhibitions to get enough trust and connections. Next year will be interesting, as I have enough time to do the full exhibition route. The exhibition in July actually moves from Tokyo to Nagano to Osaka, but because of lack of time I only exhibited in Osaka. As I still have the dream to exhibit a large artwork in the world's biggest badminton tournament and get requested as a sports illustrator that was, I take the theme of Olympic badminton.

Speaking of badminton, I went to club camp close to a big lake a bit further north. Naturally, to play a lot of badminton, but I also properly at too much food because it was delicious and played games until after midnight, to wake up slightly grumpy the nest morning. Well, like practically everyone else, so who cares really? It was a lot of fun and totally worth it!

Now I have to continue working for a while. Just got a part-time job as an illustrator at a small, traditional candy shop, which is really cool, but I also have to keep going at the research project and individual works to build up the portfolio that dould bring me to a job in Japan. So it's going to be busy, but everything now and future plans really are coming together, which gives a lot of confidence.