Coming Soon!

We are literally putting the final, final touches to Issue number 2 of Love Japan magazine. It will be going off to print very soon. I can’t share much more than the cover at the moment but a complete 88-page print version will be available to buy very soon. Exciting!

UPDATE:

We’ve decided to upload a complete version of the magazine, rather than a snapshot version as we previously thought about doing. We think this issue is just too good to keep only for print! The full magazine will be published online at the same time as print copies becoming available for purchase – which is looking like it’ll be early September. (We had a last minute addition to the magazine that we didn’t want to leave out!)

BUT don’t panic Japan fans, keep an eye on the Love Japan Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts over the coming weeks as Emily will be sharing snippets from Issue 2, ahead of its full online and print debut.

Fitbit

As I mentioned in another blog post back in May, I have become somewhat of a fitness freak this year. As well as swimming, gymming, yoga and pilates, I try to keep generally active and do as much walking as I can. Particularly to counteract my day job where I spend the majority of my time sat at a desk!

Something that aided my attempts at walking more each day – and doing more ‘steps’ – was upgrading my iPhone 4s to a 5s, which has a built in accelerometer and pedometer. I used an app called Pacer which was great for tracking my daily steps, calories burnt, distance etc. It was particularly good to see visual graphs of the day, week, month and beyond to identify which times and days of the week I was most and least active. (Obviously, I was far more active at the weekends and on gym nights.) But the problem with using your phone as your pedometer is that you feel like you need to have it on you at all times. Or else your steps won’t be logged and, kind of, won’t count!

And so, I recently decided that it was the time to part with some cash and invest in a Fitbit. A Fitbit is a wearable, wireless pedometer and activity tracker – which means that as well as counting steps it can calculate distance, flights of stairs climbed and quality of sleep (among other things).

My mum got herself a Fitbit Charge earlier this year and highly rated it – I didn’t even know what a Fitbit was before then! Some other family members have them as well and I think mum enjoys the competitive nature of it (as you can add friends and view a leaderboard of everyone’s weekly steps), as well as generally improving her daily and weekly step counts. It’s almost like a game – you even earn badges!

Needless to say, I got a bit jealous and wanted to try and compete with my mum’s step count – which in hindsight was a silly idea, because she’s so much better than me… But anyway, I have had my Fitbit for two weeks now and I love it!

Today’s step count (going to the gym helped get it over 10,000).

The Fitbit works alongside an iPhone app.

Unfortunately, there is a negative point to this blog post. Within a few days of using my Fitbit, it became clear that mine wasn’t very good at holding its charge…

A Fitbit Charge (oh so ironically named) is supposed to last about a week with normal use, but mine did not last as long as two days at a time. Had I not known that it was supposed to last longer, then this probably wouldn’t have been too much trouble. It doesn’t take too long to charge a Fitbit back up into a useable state so I was able to do it whilst sitting still and reading or using my computer in the evenings. Although a few times I charged it up over night which meant that my quality of sleep was not properly logged.

After a bit of Googling, I found that I wasn’t the only Fitbit user with battery problems. But I also found that Fitbit are extremely good at dealing with customer queries and problems. So, last Saturday morning I sent an email to their UK customer support team explaining my Charge’s charge problem. Within a few hours (on a Saturday!), I had a reply. They needed a few more details about my Fitbit, like where I bought it from (Amazon), but after that I was told that a replacement Fitbit Charge would be on its way to me within a few days!

My completely free-of-charge replacement Fitbit arrived today – exactly at the time that they said it would. I’m currently charging it up but fingers crossed this one will last 7 days! I can’t rate the company highly enough for their customer service. Thank you, Fitbit.

ps. Mum shared this link with me this morning. Yes, it is that addictive.

The 70th Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day

On the 6th of August 1945, the USA dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, on the 9th of August (exactly 70 years ago today), a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The two bombs killed almost 130,000 people, not to mention the thousands that were left injured or without their loved ones and homes. Unsurprisingly, a few days after the second bombing Japan surrendered and effectively ended World War II.

Every year the peace pagoda at Milton Keynes holds a commemorative ceremony to reflect on the horrors of war and invites people, from all nationalities and cultures, to ‘pray’ together for peace and harmony. There are chants, music and speeches from a variety of people, from variety of organisations and religions – not just Buddhists, after all peace is for everyone!

This year, for the 70th anniversary, I went along to be a part of the event and take some photographs. I dusted of my actual camera for the occasion – the camera I took to Japan but don’t really use for anything else… because, iPhone. Unfortunately, because my camera is really just a glorified point ’n’ click rather than a proper SLR, I didn’t take particularly good photos. Well, that and I’m no photographer!

12 x FT

I was super lucky to attend the release day party of Frank Turner’s sixth album, Positive Songs for Negative People, last night at the Garage in Highbury, London. It was definitely one of the best Frank Turner shows I’ve been to, which is no mean feat – I’ve been to 12 of his gigs over the past five years!

Those 12 gigs have really ranged in size and location – one was even in another country! This has got me thinking that it would be interesting to gather together a photo from each show and share them all together. I, of course, take photos at every gig I go to – I even used to use an actual camera, before the iPhone/Instagram…

24/03/10 @ Camden Roundhouse, London

The first and probably one of the closest I’ve been. Will always be special to me.

16/07/10 @ 2000 Trees Festival, Upcote Farm, Cheltenham

Frank’s first festival headline. My first festival. Our favourite festival.

BONUS PHOTO!

12/12/10 @ Brixton Academy, London

Venue size increasing rapidly. Dad was my gig buddy for this one – his first (of six) FT gig(s).

04/04/11 @ White Trash Fast Food, Berlin (Germany!)

Conveniently he was playing in Berlin when I was there. This was a solo show.

25/08/11 @ Roadmender, Northampton

A Reading warm-up show. Too close to home to even consider missing.

27/11/11 @ Hammersmith Apollo, London

Travelled up from Cornwall for this one. Only time I’ve ever been seated for a FT show too.

13/04/12 @ Wembley Arena, London

A real special show – both for me and Frank!

01/07/12 @ 
Eden Sessions, Eden Project, St Austell

Frank Turner? In Cornwall? A few days before I left Falmouth for good? Sure thing!

26/11/12 @ O2 Academy, Oxford

I won guest list spots for the venue of my choice. This was a tour without a London date.

[2013 was unintentionally a Frank-free year]

12/02/14 @ O2 Arena, London

Massive, but massively awesome.

17/12/14 @ XFM Winter Wonderland, Brixton Academy, London

Frank and the boys were awesome as always but wouldn’t go to an XFM thing again.

07/08/14 @ The Garage, London

Last night. Closer to the stage standing at the back of the venue than several of the above!

Clearly almost all of these are pretty bad from a photographic point of view… but it’s interesting to see how Frank – and the band (note how they don’t become known as The Sleeping Souls for a while) – have evolved. And the logo/stage backdrop too!

It actually feels like I’ve seen Frank more times than this: he’s made guest appearances when I’ve been watching Beans on Toast and Billy Bragg, plus another Billy – Billy the Kid – on multiple occasions. Not to mention the times I’ve stood next to or near him at other artist’s shows!

I’ve got at least one more gig lined up in November but I don’t doubt that I will continue to go to even more Frank Turner shows after that. He’s just that good.

Miniature Calendar

Yes, it would seem that I now post on my blog so rarely (I’m just too darn busy!) that when I do it is almost certainly Japan-related… well, the artist behind these is Japanese at least.

Tatsuya Tanaka has been creating these stunning miniature dioramas each day since 2011! The images form a calendar – the miniature calendar. Although I have hardly skimmed the surface of the calendar, I’ve picked some of my favourites from the last few months (plus some others that I nabbed off of Bored Panda) to share.

Starting with today’s miniature.

This is my favourite.

A little bit of Japan in Milton Keynes

Yesterday morning I popped over to Milton Keynes to take Emily – creator, editor and photographer of Love Japan magazine – to the peace pagoda. It’s somewhere I’ve been wanting to show her for a while, because I adore the place, having visited it so many times in my life. Plus, it is really quite unusual that such a beautiful and unique, Buddhist and Japanese structure is situated in Milton Keynes – the town that pretty much everyone, even those that live there, judge as a concrete jungle.

Emily herself hadn’t really been to Milton Keynes (aside from the Bowl) but had heard other people’s opinions – see above: concrete jungle. However, she was pleasantly surprised by what bits of Milton Keynes I showed her. I’ve always said that the peace pagoda and the temple, with its surrounding gardens, is one of, if not my most, favourite places in all of the world. Emily could see why…

There were, unfortunately, quite a few cars (and a campervan!) parked outside the temple.

We went inside, removing our shoes of course, and absorbed the peaceful atmosphere.

And also went out to the rear garden – not walking on the stones!

The temple itself is distinctly Japanese-looking but without architectural details like onigawara.

It was lovely to wander around the peace pagoda and temple, but the actual reason for Emily coming to Milton Keynes was to photograph me for one of her photography degree projects, Shinnichi.

‘Shinnichi’ – literally translated as ‘a person who likes Japan’ – focuses on people, and their individual interest in Japanese culture, from fashion and pop culture, to tradition crafts and martial arts.

My portrait is the 7th in Emily’s series of 8 (the 8th has yet to be captured), although she intends for it to be an ongoing project outside of her degree. You can check out the other portraits in the series so far and read a bit more about the project here.