Onomichi Townscape

Bye Onomichi for a while. Bye bye to the kitschy mock samurai castle. See you next time.

Onomichi Landscape: Commercial Space

Plumber shop

Onomichi is a small seaside town in southeast Hiroshima. Yasujiro Ozu shoot ending scenes of Tokyo Story in Onomichi. I want to introduce this fascinating, quaint town with a web of narrow, steep, winding paths to you. I've been this town countless times, and each time I find new aspects that I didn't see from the previous visit.

Interested? Please take a look at my post: The Landscape of Yasujiro Ozu.

Today, I'll show you some commercial spaces in Onomichi. All those photos evokes nostalgic sense to Japanese folks even he/ she didn't grow up in the mid 20th century. While the space represents our shared sense of the past, this is not a Potemkin facade like some amusement parks!

 Toy store display window

The Landscape of Yasujiro Ozu: Onomichi, Hiroshima

Just for a week, I went back to my home in Hiroshima. It's been for five years? since last time I went back. Well, I don't like an airplane trip. Wish I could afford a business class or something. Twelve hours in a sardine tine is asking too much for me. What could I do if I wanna get out and breath some outside air? No, obviously.

Enough gripe. I know, I know.

Onomichi cats are slim and have big eyes and ears!

Urban obscurities

Montreal, Northampton, and Greenfield

Railroad Bridge over the Deerfield, Deerfield-Greenfield

Disused Boston and Maine railroad bridge over the Deerfield River

Google Map

Oddities in Montreal II - a**holes who steal benches suck

A vestige of last summer. Bilingual cuss. I admit I do love the city.

You may also visit: Oddities in Montreal I- Fear is the Mind Killer

Belchertown State School, Belchertown

The Belchertown State School for the "Feeble-Minded" was established in 1922. The above is a theater with an underground gym where a basketball court and a mini bowling alley left abandoned with icy, squishy floors.

A series of journalistic coverages and lawsuits in the early 70's disclosed the Belchertown's unsanitary, overcrowded condition at some of the dorms where over 80-year-old residents lived with other 120 residents who were "mentally, all two-year-olds in the physical bodies of grown-ups."*  

The school was closed in 1992. A talk of converting the complex into a "5-star living " spa  surfaced in 2006, but even twenty years later, the site remains abandoned.

What is the power that institutionalizes people? Why is such authority dismantled now...or the structures are left derelict, but the system of institution became more invisible and more pervasive? What are the forces that led to the closure of the Belchertown and other countless institutions in the nation; benevolent efforts to place intellectually disabled persons into a community based care, frail of a large scale institutional care, or shift to private enterprise? Where did all the residents go after the closure? Do I know all the answers?

*Robert Hornick, The Girls and Boys of Belchertown. Amherst: U of Mass P, 84.

Locate Belchertown State School @ Google Map

Sugarloaf St Cemetery, South Deerfield

There are so many stories, emotions in such a tiny gravestone.

In memory of a Son and a daughter of Mr Azariah and Mrs Mercy Cooley, who was born March 22nd, 1796 and died the same day.

Locate Sugarloaf St Cemetery @ Google Map

Montreal Cityscape IV - Market

Jean Talon Market

Montreal cityscape III - Montrealers in summertime

Summer on Sunday means Tam-tams! At Mt Royal Park, Montealers and tourists gather to join this wild assemblage of human beings. The rhythm of drums and percussion draws people's psyche into this festive, chaotic, and primitive atmosphere that any enforcers of city ordinances would have no idea where he/ she should begin to regain, or say, create "order" from scratch.

Kid A: "Daddy, what's the funky-skunky-tobacco-like-smell?"

Montreal cityscape II - Cat, cat, cat

Even some places like this:

You'll come across a cat or two...

Montreal cityscape I

Oddities in Montreal I - Fear is the Mind Killer

What's on the banner photo?

This is from Medfield State Hospital, the first post I've ever done through the venue called "Creepy-chusetts, Strange-chusetts". It was... about 2 years ago. Medfield State Hospital is a now defunct psychiatric hospital open to public to wander around.

What's the instrument? It looks like for something with music or art therapy. Everything I saw was a great mystery or "discovery" waiting to tell its story. Looking thorough the past pictures, I feel the purpose of my blog (or even my life) is to function as a medium between our everyday life and forgotten or neglected.

I only have 10 days or so in Boston. There are so many places I wanted to visit. Perhaps, I should visit Danvers State Hospital and its cemetery again.

Public Alley 439

Back Bay, Boston

Tide Pool Planets

Halibut Point State Park, Rockport

Time flies, season changes

Halibut Point State Park, Rockport

It's been four months since Longtime No See post. Same location. Time flies, season changes.

Crane Beach, Ipswich

An impression sand makes III

Wingaersheek beach, Gloucester

It's not snow! The finest sand I've ever seen!

And of course, that mansion:

Early spring is the best time to spend a sunny weekend with your dog, friend, family, or even by yourself...sans fee and crowd!