Have Cool, Will Travel?

I'm seriously considering traveling to Japan in late February.

By "seriously considering" I mean I've bought my flights, and hope that some of the slightly pesky issues—that have arisen—sort themselves out. Even though this is coming up quite soon, I don't even know where I'd go other than the mandatory stop in Tokyo.

I'm always having second (third, fourth...) thoughts whenever I go somewhere other than Russia, because travel is getting more difficult for various reasons, and I feel like I'm betraying my homeland by visiting elsewhere, as silly as this sounds.

Be that as it may, it would be great to see some of my friends and, equally important, photograph-photograph-photograph, especially if I get a new camera. 

"What's wrong with this woman," you must be thinking. Instead of beautiful scenery, you get vegetables, bugs, metal lettering, and rain! 

Fine.

Fine!!!

;)

Here are some conventional images:

Takako with leaves 800 px url.jpg

Colors Flee into the Darkness

Documenting The City at night, such as this image of Nagoya, Japan preparing to celebrate its simulacrum of a Western-style Christmas, reminds me of Kracauer's observations:

"In the Luna Park, of an evening, a fountain is sometimes displayed illuminated by Bengal lights. Cones of red, yellow and green light, continually recreated, flee into the darkness. When the splendour is gone, it turns out to have come from the wretched, cartilaginous structure of a few little pipes. The fountain resembles the life of many employees. From its wretchedness it escapes into distraction, lets itself be illuminated with Bengal lights and, unmindful of its origin, dissolves into the nocturnal void."

(Siegfried Kracauer, The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany, 1929/30)