Chris Meigh-Andrews

This evening I did an evening walk along the Pontocho, a narrow lane full of restaurants and bars, crossing the Kamo-gawa in search of  Ozawa, a highly recommended tempura restaurant. It was worth the walk!

I was awake early and spent the morning visiting some of the sub-temples of the Daitokuji Monastery. The Daisen-In,  which has a well-known Zen Garden did not allow photography, and was full of tourists, but the Koto-In, which has a wonderful moss garden was peaceful and contemplative. However, it seemed that I saved the best till last as the sublime Zuihou-In was deserted, has a stunning zen garden and a beautiful interior.

Last night I had an enjoyable evening with Prof Shinsuke Ina and his two colleagues- Isanori Oha and Naoki Nishigushi, who are currently working together on the book translation. They treated me to a delicious meal (as well as several bottles of Kirin Beer!)

My Tokyo visit is also now taking shape. I have booked 3 nights in a hotel in Shinjuku and meet with writer and curator Hirofumi Sakamoto on Monday. Tuesday evening I will meet musician Christophe Charles and we will visit the home of video artists Sei Kazama and Hatsune Ohtsu.

Much of this morning was spent arranging to visit Tokyo and co-ordinating with the curators and artists I want to interview for my research into early Japanese Artists’ video.

My plan is to travel to Tokyo on Sept 19th and to stay for several days. It is not proving as easy as I had hoped to make contact with the people I want to see!

Taking a break from e-mails and internet bookings, I cycled into the centre of Kyoto in the afternoon to make my train reservations and do some sightseeing.

Tomorrow night I have arranged to meet the two other members of Shinsuke’s translation team at Kyoto Seika University, and we will also discuss  requirements of the preface for the Japanese edition of my book.

After lunch today I visited Prof Shinsuke Ina at Kyoto-Seika University who is translating my book,  A History of Video Art: The Development of Form and Function into Japanese for Sangensha Publishers in Tokyo. We worked together on some of the details of the translation in Chapter 3.

This morning I cycled along the Kamo-gawa and up into the hills surrounding Kyoto towards Iwakura, stopping at the Jisso-In Temple for lunch.

Here is my Kyoto base, which seems to be a fair way out of town in an area called Kita-Ku, but it is near to the Kamo-Gawa (River Kamo) and I should be able to cycle in to town from here along the river and also to get to and from Kyoto-Seika University, so it should be a convenient enough location. There is also a bus into town and an all night supermarket just down the road.

I’m still not sure what time it is, or how to find anything, but although it’s only 5:21 AM local time, I’m up and about and trying to organise my little “traditional 3 mat room”….The train ride from Tokyo Narita airport and Kyoto was easy, efficient and comfortable- pity I fell asleep and missed my view of Mount Fuji!

By the afternoon of Monday, Sept 13th I’ll be on my way to Japan. My flight is due to arrive at Tokyo Narita airport on the morning of Sept 14th and I’ll be taking the famous “Bullet Train” to Kyoto later that day. I plan to keep a blog whilst I’m away, and will try to include images and video clips of what I see and where I go as part of an attempt to keep a record of my visit. 

This is just a little test to make sure that I’m pressing the right buttons and by way of an introduction to this blog. I’m guessing I’ll be too jet-lagged to do much at the end of the first day, but plan after that to try to write something each day.