Feeling very nostalgic about my proper hanami in Tokyo in 2009, I attended a Japanese Embassy / Sugihara Museum event in Kaunas, where a Japanese performance artist Kirie Oda cooperated with Lithuanian violinist and singer to create a performance around Sugihara House, which used to be the Japanese consulate before WWII and now hosts a Sugihara museum, foundation, and VMU …
My Easter around the world
Sharing nice memories from Easter with friends in various countries. 2008 – Budapest: no photos (and not many memories unfortunately) 2009 – Tokyo. A pleasant picnic in Ichigaya, I believe. I was telling my Japanese friends that I couldn’t stand mayonnaise until I tasted the Japanese one.
Summaries of my selected articles in Lithuanian
Since summer 2013 the website of Atgimimas weekly, where I worked from 2005 to 2011, is down. For this reason many of the links do not work. I will look for possibilities to retrieve my articles from the archives of the weekly.
Social capital for moving in space
Today I’ve been contemplating two types of social capital I “own”, which I normally don’t reflect upon: white body and EU passport. What is in common between them? They facilitate certain movement in space and produce certain expectations in others. And, of course, I’ve been contemplating this in relation to my research about migration.
It takes ten minutes to become a bar hostess in Tokyo
Yesterday I did a rather exciting journalistic experiment. Without many plans on my mind, I went to Kinshicho, an area known for its bars and clubs with foreign hostesses and a lot of foreigners in general. I visited this area once with B., as recommended by Y.
Tent village in Yoyogi – another side of Japan
There are 43 people in the village, but some years ago there were as many as 400. Some have been living here for a few months only, but some are true veterans – one has been around for good 20 years, and over there lives ‘ojiisan’ (‘grandpa’), who has been staying in the park for as many as 50 years. …
Restaurant review for tofu fans + more on eating out
My friend Y. discovered a really cool restaurant in Shibuya. It’s called “Sora no niwa” (here’s one review with a map) and is about 10 min walk from Shibuya station. It specialises in tofu, and thus is a paradise for vegetarians and vegans, or those who aren’t yet convinced that the seemingly tasteless Japanese invention can turn into a broad …
Outdoor activities in Tokyo
Yesterday we had a chance to experience some outdoor life, because it was a sunny Sunday. We started our trip from Meiji shrine in Harajuku. The area surrounding the shrine had probably the highest concentration of foreigners that I’ve seen in Tokyo this time (I’ve in Japan before, in 2004). Many people, alone, in couples or with their children, went …
Akihabara, were people look for ways to escape their loneliness
The further we go, the more interesting it gets. Akihabara offers a world with everything drawn by a skillful hand: sadomasochistic scenes, European counts and Japanese princes, Lolita exploitation, gay porn for women, and tons of ways of peeping into the secret office life. It’s all out there, just a few steps from the main street. I ask my friend …