La Caleta

Summer view of La caleta (The cove) and the old sugar-cane factory.

Back to the rust: timeless Osaka

Thank you Beckers!!

My working years in Osaka were finished, and with them my wildest time in Japan, the running ups and downs in the arched streets of Osaka, my bicycle, my comrades, the charmy familiar restaurants, the Kansai people, everything was left one rainy night when I had to go to Tokyo for my new and better paid job.

Just in one day, my style of life changed dramatically, even If I was in the same country, soon I realized that Tokyo and Osaka were two different universes, Osaka was a concentrated space that was designed for bicycles, everybody rode them, and Tokyo a huge area, surrounded by dormitory towns, where life was unthinkable without the local trains and metros, Osaka was the chaos, with its crazy arcades, and chanels, people there lived freely in the messy streets and socialize in the pubs, restaurants, Isakayas and terraces, but Tokyo, was the order a busier metropoli, where people didnt speak too much to each others wore suits, and went to cafeterias,chain food shops, mostly alone, for studying, reading or playing games.

Soon I realized that in a highly populated and stressfull city like Tokyo It was Important to find a private public space, an own area to sit down after the job and rest from the commuting trains, the crowd and the asfalt, thats how I discovered Beckers, a wooden cafeteria located underneath's Fujisawa Station.

During two years, Beckers was my bubble, my oxigen tank, my bunker, my reading place my short scape from the multitudinous solitude of Tokio, every morning I get off the first train (I had to take three to get to my job!), and I fought against the crowd to reach Becker's door, once I entered in the place I was saved, the best English breakfast was waiting for me, a crunchy well made toast, fried bacon from the finest quality, scramble egg with some ketchup, and a tasted hot coffee in winter or a huge refreshing ice coffee in Summer, on Sundays I went there to read my favorite newspaper "The Japan Times" and to eat the burguer menus, with chilli sauce, fried potatoes and ice cola.

But the best thing about Becker's was its location, just underneath of the train station, in front of the sotetsu line, in the middle of the busy crowd but protected from the crowd, inside the cafeteria everybody was relax, listening the classical music, but through the windows you could see the twisted faces running to catch the trains, trying to be in time for their jobs, jumping through the upstairs to reach the station, aahhhh at that time how good was to be inside Becker's.

Thanks Becker's for those tasted delicacies, specially the breakfast, the big ice coffees and overall for have given me a good break-time space during my time in Tokyo's jungle.

Working at Kinokuniya bookstore

I made this sketch one year ago, I was in Yokohama's Kinokuniya bookstore when I realized how organized were the shopkeepers, same cool costumes, always willing to help, and always ready behind the counter, prepared for charging the costumers and dont make them waiting too much in the queue, they were like warriors waiting for a consumer army including myself.

Sketching japanese Part 2

More people sketchings, on the left page trying to study some old people figure. On the right couple and families. Some of them taken in situ in Yokohama, but some made after at home from the pictures I took with my camera.

Sketching japanese Part 1

Lately I have been coloring my old people sketches in Japan. In the last few months I have been starting to use watercolours with my ink sketches, so I thought It was a good practice.

The page on the left are people drawn in Yokohama, the first one a young mother with her baby, second is a young salaryman and the third one is an old man reading the paper.

The second page, this one was inside of a small mcdonald in Tokyo at 2:00 o'clock, my friend Chris and me after drinking we went there to eat something, he entered at the same time of us, and after he finished his burguer, we suddenly realize that he felt sleep in that strange position, he should be really tired, I took a picture and I drew him because the position seemed physically impossible.

The next one is a young woman reading a book at Kinokuniya bookstore, the next is a woman taking a walk with her mini-dog, and the last one is a salaryman sleeping in the train.

Iglesia de San Juan de Dios