Stillness and movement- Sarah's soles

Bought at ABC Mart in Tokyo, Sarah's shoes are the largest men's size. She said a shop assistant ran from the Shinjuku store she was in, a couple of blocks and back to bring her the right size. I love the concentric circles round the sun.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa 神奈川沖浪裏 Kanagawa-oki nami-ura, certainly the most famous of Hokusai 36 views. I read somewhere that it's beauty is based on the balance of the movement of the waves against the stillness of Fuji. It's funny but I can't ever remember seeing Mt Fuji in the work until I saw in in Tokyo. Although this might be because I haven't really been much of a Nipponofile until going there and certainly wasn't interested in Fuji. I like the literal translation of the title suggested at Wikipedia, it seems to fit the image of Sarah's shoe well. "Off Kanagawa, the back (or underside) of a wave."

Enoshima (Kanagawa) waves where pretty low the times I was there but the water was still full of full body wet suited surfers. They where on sitting on their submerged boards, looking out to sea. From a distance I though they where flocks of cormorants.

Update:

After a very exciting weekend at the 7th printmaking symposium I got onto the blog printeresting, thanks to the beautiful Rebecca Mayo, they also have a little story about the Great Wave shoes.

Surprise Fuji

On the way to Nikko National Park- but not Nikko itself. It was a fantastic clear day, the first one since I returned from Nagoya and Beppu. I wish I had had time to go up the Government Towers to the viewing platform, but that view was not to be this trip to Japan. I did however get to add this surprise view. Surprising because this must be the furtherest away I have seen Fuji and although it was one of the "suggested views" I didn't think I would have a chance to go to Nikko. It's barely a white outline in this last image. The weather had been so bad in my last weeks I was giving up hope of seeing Fuji one last time.

I knew to watch out for Fuji on this train line, as Sarah had mentioned seeing it from the train on the way to Nikko.