So another song- Pig by Sparklehorse. I was considering picking Tears on Fresh Fruit, which is my other favourite song by them, but this won out.
Midsommar
Last night, I saw Midsommar, a film I’ve had my eye on for a while. It’s received very mixed reviews in the press, but I loved it. I felt it was pretty much what you’d get if you got Alexander Jodorowsky to direct the Wicker Man
Ghost Fang
Kevin who I run Connect Nothing With Nothing with has an improv group called Ghost Fang. Each performance includes whatever musicians want to take part…
I don’t know what to do with your clothes or your letters
The Song is the Single
Here’s another song for you- The Song is the Single by Barr. It originally came out when I was at university, and then ten years later, Brendan did a show at Power Lunches out of the blue, because he was in town for an art event anyway…
Nuns contemplating Dog
I took some press shots of “”pineal-poking punked-up psychedelic speedfreaks” Casual Nun at Dreamland when they came down to Margate to play a gig recently. While everyone’s back was turned, Iraklis won a huge toy dog from a sideshow on the first attempt.
Tumbleweed
I’ve been out of action for the last ten days after a stage light fell from a shelf onto my head and I was left with concussion and back injuries…
HI STRANGER
This is the creepiest animation I’ve seen in a long time. I love it. The youtube comments are split between people being creeped out and finding it soothing. I’m in the creeped out camp- stop trying to glom onto me with your love, sneaky plasticine man. I don’t know you. Here’s some other interesting links too:
Kleenex- Nice
So next up, Nice by Kleenex. (Who later had to rename themselves Liliput after pressure from the tissue company). Infectious early 80s Swiss post-punk.
Bedgebury Park
In which I explore an abandoned boarding school in 2012 while going through some very hard times.
Over the Edge- Wipers
So I thought I would pick a song I like each day, and write something about why I like it, in an attempt to make myself write more often.
Assorted interesting stuff
Five interesting links for you
Old Stripy Bum
A couple of months ago I adopted a young cat from the local animal shelter. The profile said he was playful and curious, had a missing tail and needed a lot of attention and activity.
I’m back
So like a lot of people lately I’ve been thinking about the influence of the big social media sites, especially with all the news stories about how they have done little to nothing to stop far-right radicalisation in the past few years. I loathe Facebook, and would happily close my account if I didn’t use it for promoting events…
2018 to 2019
2018 was a hard year and felt like it lasted a million years rather than just one. I spent most of 2017 travelling around for both work and pleasure, visiting the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Japan, Croatia, Slovenia, France and Switzerland.
Here I am
I have barely updated this blog since the summer because I’ve been both very busy and rarely home. I spent most of September in Australia…
Bismuth
Hello from the southern hemisphere. Here’s some new press shots of my friends’ band Bismuth I took a few weeks ago at the original UK Botany Bay…
It Came From the Merch Table
People loved the poster, so I got some merch printed up to sell at the festival, and some local friends to model it in an impromptu photo shoot…
Bloody Head
So here’s another gig I’m helping to organise and did the poster for. This time I went for a pretty simple design. Spilt blood speaks for itself…
Dachau
On my way back from the Tyrol, I stayed in Munich en route to the airport, and visited the Dachau concentration camp museum- it was the first Nazi concentration camp and served as a template for many of the others…
Schwartzsee
A short train ride or couple of miles walk outside Kitzbühel is the Schwartzsee (“black lake”). It’s full of minerals washed down from the mountains that give it the glassy black effect…
Kitzbühel
So here’s a couple of assorted photos of Kitzbühel town. It’s a ski resort in the Austrian Tyrol, about equidistant between Salzburg, Innsbruck and Munich…
Beige Palace & Dead Kaczynski
Here’s another gig poster I did (this time for a gig that’s already passed, because I’ve been so slack about updating this blog)…
Hahnenkamm
In July I went to Kitzbühel in Austria for work. I was there to run a workshop in the local middle school, and the mayor gave me and my three co-workers tickets for the local ski lift…
Jazz snails
Another poster I did for a local gig I helped promote…
Enter the Vortex
So here’s the posters I designed for two gigs I’m helping to put on- one in London, the other in Margate. As per the press release “Girl Sweat is the ever-changing garage-noise project fronted by the 6ft 5” beast that is ‘Sweat’” along with the fine collection of psych and drone weirdos assembled in support. My brief for the poster was “illuminati/masons cult shit”. I hope I delivered.
Behemoth Lives!
Margate is currently hosting a variety of art events related to T.S.Eliot (who wrote the Wasteland here almost a century ago), including a weekend dedicated to cats over Easter. I created this print based on Bulgakov’s the Master and Margarita, and a giant painted banner version of it to hang up at the show. It was a bit last minute, but I got it all done on time. The show is on at the Viking Gallery off Northdown Rd over the long Easter weekend and until the 7th of April.
Very Friendly
Here’s some photographs I took of my friends’ band Very Friendly. For a while we had intended to take some promo shots with a miserable day at the beach theme, and then the beach was suddenly covered in thick snow, so this happened over a lunch break. Harry eventually got warm again. Eventually.
Some interesting odds and ends
A handful of interesting links
Whitstable print
Here’s an illustration I recently did of Whitstable seafront. A3, A4 and A5 giclée prints are available here.
Primordial Soup
Here’s a gig poster I drew recently. I was given free reign to do whatever I wanted, and it turns out what I wanted was to do a fake cyanotype of pondscum. Facebook event for the show here.
Ma Chambre
So here’s my room. I moved to this small unfurnished flat in October, and until the New Year I didn’t have a bed or enough shelves, so everything was in boxes all over the place, and it didn’t look great. The other room has both the living room stuff and my desk, which isn’t ideal. Photos of that will have to wait because it’s currently covered in a load of paperwork and art stuff.
Dawnwalker
So I recently did some artwork for an album cover- Human Ruins by Dawnwalker (featuring Dane Cross from Sacred Son, who caused an incredible fuss last with the Black Metal fanboys with his choice of album artwork). I did the moons and runes, and someone else did the photograph and logo. Photos courtesy of Mark from the band.
New print- Sheep Skull
So here’s a new illustration I did. It’s actually based on a drawing I did when I was 17 that I found while sorting out some paperwork recently. You can buy monochrome and colour prints for £3-£30 over on the shop.
January Playlist
The second half of January has been a bad time for me, with a lot of very difficult things to deal with. I’ve been low on energy for doing anything much creative. Here’s a playlist of songs I’ve been listening to lately though.
Die grade Linie ist die unschöpferische Linie
Just before Christmas I ran a Hundertwasser-themed workshop as a fundraiser for 101 Social Club. (If you are not familiar with Austrian artist, architect, environmentalist and cranky old hippy Friedensreich Hundertwasser, I have written about him quite a few times- you can find the entries here) People had food and drink, learnt about Hundertwasser’s work and philosophies, and did three different casual art activities- collaborative line making, resist painting, and creating architectural models of Hundertwasser-style buildings out of recycled materials. All while listening to the fine selection of Can, Neu, Fennesz, Cluster, Faust and other artists from the playlist below (I had it on shuffle on the night)
Domestic Abuse Support All-dayer fundraising gig
I recently went to a local gig put on by Art’s Cool raising money for the local domestic abuse support charity. It was an all-dayer, with half the lineup being local Kent bands, and the other half being from Leeds. The next day they did it all again, but in Leeds, and raising money for an education charity there. I missed the first band, but they were kind of a supergroup made up of members from the different Leeds bands
Trying to be nicer to myself
Today is the last day of my 32nd year on the planet. As someone with a mid-January birthday, I particularly hate how January is assigned to be the hate-yourself-and-vow-to-change-everything-about-yourself-in-a-punitive-way month. Rather than futile and harmful diet and gym plans, I’m trying to be nicer to myself and less viciously self-critical about my appearance.
Büren-Harth
Here’s some more photos from Germany. From Harth in Nordrhein-Westfalen to be more precise. It’s a small village in the Sauerland, a scenic forest region about a hundred miles east of Cologne, popular for hiking and cycling.
Some thoughts about having left London
So I returned permanently to the UK in September and moved to Margate. I grew up in Kent, but haven’t lived here permanently since I was 18, which feels like a long time ago. Settling in has been both good and hard. I travelled non-stop essentially from January to September, and adjusting myself to being in one place and the idea that I live somewhere has taken a while. It’s also kind of weird pretty much only being surrounded by people I’ve known for 1-2 months- you feel like the awkward new kid at school.
Düsseldorf
I spent most of August in Germany, teaching some school workshops and going to Documenta art fair along the way. My first assignment was in rural Nordrhein-Westfalen. The agency has a tendency to book you on flights at brutal times early on a Sunday, so instead I booked my own flight to Cologne on a Friday evening, and claimed it back off them. I have been to Cologne loads of times, and my colleagues were flying into Düsseldorf, which I had never visited. So I decided to stay in Düsseldorf, do a bit of sightseeing, and then meet up with the others before heading to the Sauerland.
They only want you when you’re seventeen
I made this playlist a while back, and the post has been languishing in the drafts for a while, so I thought I’d finish it off for the end of the year. It’s all songs I liked when I was 17, which was in 2002
British Museum Sketches
Here’s some more old sketchbook pages I scanned, this time from the British Museum.
Wooden hands
I got a short notice illustration job this week for images for Christmas greetings from Buildopia, an Italian eco-building company. They specialise in wood and their slogan translates as “the building game”.
Zilinski album launch
So here are some much more recent gig pictures- from this week in fact. Local label M8s Records held an album launch party for Canterbury band Zilinski. With Lazy Pilgrims and Trash Mammoth in support.
Cloudrat & Moloch
A couple of years ago my friend Steve Larder’s band Moloch did a split LP and tour with American grindcore band Cloudrat. I found the unedited photos the other day, and finally sorted them out. Enjoy.
I’m Curious To Know Exactly How You Are
I had to put a Hüsker Dü song in this list, as they are one of my all-time favourite bands, but it was hard to decide which one. In the end I went for a really obvious choice- the first song of theirs I got into.
“I cried for madder music and for stronger wine”
I have Bacchae prints available again. The text says “I caught this young lion myself without a trap”. Based on the scene from Euripides’ Bacchae where Pentheus’ mother tears her own son’s head off with her bare hands while under Dionysus’ spell and parades it round the stage. Available from me as a print here for £6 or £12 depending on size. Ideal festive gift for all, look how red it is.
Hobotnica
And to round off my stuff from Croatia, here’s some sketchbook notes from Zadar museum and Trogir. Hobotnica (pronounced hobotnitsa) is Croatian for octopus. It’s a good word.
Croatia Playlist
So here’s my playlist from Croatia- it goes with the zine I wrote about the trip.
Trogir
So here’s the last of my pictures from Croatia. This time of Trogir, a town up the coast from Split. I went there on the bus, on a whim really, and was glad I did.
That Cat’s Something I Can’t Explain
I would describe this as essentially a Bond theme about a Siamese cat. I’m a big fan of Syd Barrett, but have a deep pool of loathing for Roger Waters. I would call it an irrational hatred, but I feel like I could come up with plenty of reasons for my loathing. My mother is a big Pink Floyd fan, so I’ve had plenty of exposure over my lifetime to fuel it.
Marjan
If you keep walking out of Split you end up on the Marjan peninsula. The first time I visited I made the mistake of climbing up to the peak in 35c heat. After that I sensibly took the coast road.
I just wait, I just think
I debated which Codeine song to use, the competition was strong. Codeine are often described as Slowcore. Slow songs in Stephen Immerwahr’s (a fitting name- his surname is German for “Always True”) clear voice with vivid images about the small despairs of everyday life and relationships. A long evening alone in the Winter. I imagine a lot of people will hate this and find it dreary, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s anything but.
Split
Here’s some photos from my trip to Croatia this summer. It was a real last minute thing, I suddenly had a week free in a packed summer of teaching engagements and still didn’t actually live anywhere yet, so I bought a cheap flight to Croatia and did some sightseeing.
Ponder this to get nearer to nothing
When I wrote the 50 Things About Me entry a little while ago, I started creating a playlist of 50 favourite songs. It got unwieldy and didn’t flow well though, so I gave up. Instead I’ll write a little bit every so often about songs from the list.
The Van Pelt are not famous or well-known outside a small niche. The singer/song-writer Chris Leo’s brother Ted Leo is much more well-known, and bass player Toko Yasuda has had success over the years playing with Enon, Blonde Redhead and St Vincent, but they never hit the big time. Instead they released two quietly treasured albums in the mid-90s (Sultans of Sentiment and Stealing From Our Favourite Thieves) and then disbanded- they’ve released a collection of sessions that were intended for a third album (Imaginary Third) and done the odd reunion tour (I was lucky enough to catch one in London-it was a very special evening) but I’m guessing only a small selection of my readers will know them.
Topiary
I used to work at Hampton Court. This is a marker drawing of some of the trees in the gardens there. I earnt a pittance, worked every single weekend for six months, and wore a terrible polyester uniform. I got very used to being surrounded by incredible splendour though, and spent quite a lot of happy hours minding the maze, sitting in a shed reading long Russian books, listening to whatever mellow music wouldn’t annoy tourists (lots of Elliot Smith, Fleetwood Mac, Tortoise and Grandaddy), and making up lies about the maze to tourists. (I wrote about being in charge of the maze in issue 22 of my zine). I also used to get a good amount of free glasses of Pimms too from jugs that were left over from the outside bar.
A magician calls
Another old sketchbook page I scanned in. This one is from a couple of years ago. I was teaching on a residential course for teenagers. It was in an old nunnery in the middle of nowhere, so the staff organised a lot of evening activities and film showings to keep them amused. One night a magician came to do a show, and I made these notes.
Ljubljana Biennial
This summer I had to chance to go to both Documenta in Kassel and the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts. Here’s my photos from one of the Ljubljana Biennial exhibitions that allowed photos. The theme of this Biennial was this poem by Slovenian writer Jure Deleta.
Bits and pieces
Here’s some odds and ends:
Green concrete
Here’s an illustration of a car park in Bracknell. Like the one I did yesterday, the original artwork was a pen and ink drawing, and the colour was added digitally. It’s available as a print in three different sizes, from £6 to £24.
My only love is the sea
Here’s an illustration of a fishing village in Cornwall.
Knock Three Times
Knock Three Times is not a well-known book, which is a pity.
Halloween Sale- 25% discount
I’ve got a Halloween sale running until the 1st of November. 25% off anything with code PUMPKIN. That’s zines, stickers, patches, pins, anything.
Check out what I have available here.
Ghost Notes
Earlier in the summer I went on a ghost tour of Cambridge via work, and I took these notes.
Cambridge’s Most Haunted
I didn’t have a very thrilling pre-Halloween weekend. I was struck down by the bug that’s been going around locally, and stayed in and watched Stranger Things instead. I was tempted to get a pumpkin to carve, but building work next door has displaced mice that have tried to come into my flat. At the moment they are deterred by cotton wool and strong-smelling orange and lemongrass essential oils, but I’d rather not tempt them in with a large ready cut pumpkin to eat.
In the summer I went on a ghost walk in Cambridge via work. The guide told stories of mysterious cloaked figures on roofs, and Black Shuck the giant black ghost dog, and also pointed out this spot, at the back of Peterhouse College, where it joins onto a graveyard, as the most haunted place in town.
Seahorse Lino cuts
Lino printing 101.
Sailing up the Ljubljanica
When I was in Ljubljana this summer, I went on a boat tour up the Ljubljanica river that runs through the city.
Two new zines
I’ve got two new zines out.
Sea Serpent Bookplates
I’ve made these printable bookplates, in both A4 and US Letter sizes. Four per page. They are for personal use only- you may not sell copies you have printed, host these files on another site, or use the artwork for any other commercial purpose.
The downloads are free, but if you like and use them, a pay-what-you-want tip is very much appreciated.
Hiding in plain sight
I’ve wanted to write about some happier things for the last few days, but my mind has been very much consumed with the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal
It’s so funny how we don’t talk any more
I realised recently how much I miss getting comments and having conversations on this blog. I know that people read it and they seem to enjoy it, but I don’t get much feedback or reactions outside Facebook.
Valentina Tereshkova stickers & Write More Letters patches
While unpacking my art stuff, I found some long-lost screen-printed patches, and some packets of kraft paper sticker blanks I had no memory of buying. So I rejigged some old artwork to create some stickers.
Metelkova
Metelkova is an area in the centre of Ljubljana that was originally a military barracks, then was squatted in the early 90s when the Yugoslav army pulled out after Slovenia declared independence, and is now full of social centres, workshops and gig venues. (And a hostel where I stayed overnight before crossing the border to Klagenfurt for work).
One Second A Day- September
Here is my one second a day video for September. Features Hamburg suburbs, Heidelburg, small towns in Baden-Württemburg, the Kent coast and a gig from British Sea Power and Everything Everything.
So I moved back to Kent…
So I moved back to Kent last week. (I’m knackered after travelling round Germany for three weeks and then moving house back-to-back). To Margate in particular. I grew up in Medway, a little way to the west, but left when I was eighteen to go to university, as it didn’t feel like there were any opportunities for me. Nearly fifteen years later, here I am. A lot has changed in that time.
Margate Zine Club
I moved house last week back to back with coming back from Germany, and am exhausted, but here I am organising events. A little zine meet up in a lovely local cafe/record shop/yoga studio- plenty of vegan and gluten-free options. Free entry, and step-free, but sadly no disabled toilet (the toilets are upstairs).
Three new zines
I’ve got three new zines out- one about France, one about Italy, and one about film photography
The District Without Qualities?
So I’m back in the UK. For good now. Most of this week has been taken up with house-hunting, arranging vans etc. More on that soon. I don’t like to count my chickens before they’re hatched.
However, I was tidying up the folders on my computer this week, and found these miscellaneous photos of Vienna from February.
So Bin Ich
I return to the UK for good next week (?!?) after a year spent mostly abroad. It will be back to service as normal round here, and I’ve got a whole load of photos of different places that I have yet to post.
I’ve got a fair few new readers lately (mostly from my photos of Japan), and the bio on here isn’t very forthcoming about myself. A lot of the time my approach to blogging is Look Here Is A Thing, but I think a lot of people prefer something more personal to keep reading. So here’s one of those 50 Things About Me things, (with one for luck).
(((O Boards of Sunnada O)))
Anyway, in July Sunn O))) toured the UK, and I couldn’t go because I was committed to working long hours on this residential course I was teaching, and I felt pretty sad about it. So I used It Took The Night to Believe as the prompt for that week’s creative writing activity for my students. The previous week I’d used the video for Reach for the Dead by Boards of Canada (both pieces of music gave good results in the student’s writing) . While setting up the activity I accidentally set off both songs at once, and discovered they actually sound amazing together. So enjoy. For best results, start the Boards of Canada song first.
August Zines-25% off
I’m back in the UK until Weds, and able to send out zines again. However I can only do the small selection I have already printed up- new print runs will have to wait until my permanent return in September. With a bonus 25% off. Here’s what I’ve got:
Sick Exhibition
I’m much more timely with writing about this than I usually am, because the exhibition is currently running. My friend Zara Carpenter has curated an exhibition of artworks In Chatham related to chronic illness. It runs from the 4th to 27th August at Sun Pier House, Chatham. You can find out more about the exhibitors and philosophy behind the exhibition on the website. There are just some hasty phone photos from the opening night.
Here I am
Also I haven’t been updating this blog as much lately, because I’ve just been so busy. I went to Croatia, Slovenia and Austria for work and pleasure in June, and then came to Cambridge at the start of the month to teach on a residential course. My contracted hours were already high, and I’ve been doing a lot of overtime covering for someone who was hospitalised. I’ve worked 160 hours in the last three weeks, so it’s no surprise I’ve had no spare time. I only have one more week left to go however, so expect some photos of Austria and the former Yugoslavia, as well as other things.
Japan Roundup
So I’ve finally put up all the photos I took in Japan. Below is a summary and links to each post. I have also created some designs for gifts and homewares over on Society 6 with my photographs from Japan. You can find them here.
Japan playlist
Here’s a Spotify playlist I made while I was in Japan, of Japanese artists and music that matched my mood at the time. (All the Japanese bands are marked with a J).
Hiroshima
One of our final stop-offs in Japan was Hiroshima. Hiroshima is most famous for being the first city (and so far 50% of all cities) to be nuclear bombed. Nearly everything in the city was destroyed, and at least 50% of the population died, with the survivors often suffering extreme health problems afterwards. Nearly all the buildings in the city are modern- the Atomic Dome pictured above was one of the few old buildings standing. Visiting Hiroshima has only increased my belief in nuclear disarmament. (And I’m for unilateral disarmament- something the UK government had the chance to do last year but didn’t, with choosing to renew the Trident missiles).
Ema
An important aspect of Japanese shrines and temples are ema plaques (the name 絵馬 literally means “picture horse”). These are small wooden signs with a picture on one side. You write a wish on it and hang it up (or take it home as a souvenir). Each site has its own design, so I made a collection of photos of different ones I saw in Japan. They are originally a Shinto tradition, but can also be found at Buddhist temples. At bigger sites you can find messages written in a lot of different languages.
Nara Garden
While we were in Nara we also visited a traditional Japanese tea garden. Unfortunately the tea house was shut, and it was raining, but it was still a lovely garden.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Deer
Our final stop in Japan before flying home from Osaka was Nara. In the 700s it was the capital of Japan, at the time when Buddhism really became established in Japan. Nowadays as well as Buddhism, it’s known for the tame deer who live in the forest park surrounding the temples and shrines. We stayed in a hostel in the forest. It seemed a short walk from the train station, but we ended up walking along dark forest paths dragging cases seemingly forever, with deer staring at us accusingly like something out of Princess Mononoke. (The hostel turned out to be a pretty weird place too).
Zine orders close for summer 21st May
I’m going to be away a lot over the summer, so I’ll be closing my online shop down (until probably September) next Wednesday the 21st of May at 3pm GMT. This means that if you want some zines you need to order this week or wait several months. It also means I can only really do trades within the UK. As well as zines I’ve also got various badges, patches, prints, lengths of vintage ribbon etc. You can find the shop here. There are also wholesale prices available for distros.
Craft as radical?
I’ve split the article up into four sections- my criticisms of radical spaces and scenes I’ve known, of the fashion industry, and of the current commercial craft revival, and then at the end explaining the ways I think doing textile crafts can be radical. In writing the article, I was specifically thinking of crafts such as sewing and knitting, both because they are things I do, and also because they are stereotypically done by women and often dismissed as silly and frivolous, but a lot of the points can apply to any handicraft. As well as dealing with the topic of crafts, it’s really more of a kind of wander round my thoughts about “radical”. The section on crafts is actually the shortest, but I’ve used it as the overall framing device. I’ll probably manage to piss off both the cliquey punx and the craft blogger people with this, but never mind.
Okunoshima- Rabbit Island
While I was in Japan we visited the island of Okunoshima. In the Second World War it was a top secret chemical weapons plant, but now is a nature reserve famous for its free-ranging tame rabbits, who are probably the descendants of the lab rabbits.
Diana Wynne Jones zine
I have a zine of articles about children’s writer Diana Wynne Jones (of Howl’s Moving Castle et al) I wrote this zine in 2011, also managing to interview her before she sadly died (you can also read the interview online here). The original edition was 1/6 of an A3 sheet, made on a Risograph machine. This was great when I still had access to an A3 Riso machine, but after I didn’t it was very expensive and difficult to reprint, so it went out of print. Recently I did a new edition, with all-new illustrations, in a much more convenient standard A6 size
Benesse Museum collection
Benesse House on Naoshima doesn’t allow photos of their modern art collection, so here is a selection of works I like by some artists I saw there. I though the space of the museum was wonderful, but the fact that there was no information about the artworks was a letdown. If you didn’t know much about modern art already, you might not have got much out of the visit, which is a bad thing for a museum, seeing as one of the main reasons to go is to learn new things.
Naoshima
Naoshima is tiny idyllic island in the Seto Inland sea devoted to modern art. The opening of the Benesse modern art museum (owned by the same organisation as Berlitz language schools) revived the island’s fortunes, although it’s still a small and quiet place with only a few villages and a lot of old people.
Zine catalogue
I have updated and created an online catalogue of my zine projects- both the current ones, and the out of print ones. It can be found at http://www.ynfytyn.co.uk. If you have ever wondered why my zine is called that, you can also find out here.
Kyoto Shrines and Temples
Kyoto is famous for its Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, many of which are UNESCO world heritage sites. There are so many in the city that even though I spent a whole day walking round different sites, I only saw a small percentage of them. People place stones on these Shinto torii gates for good luck. You can also see my photos of ema good luck plaques here.
Kyoto II
Here’s some more photos of Kyoto. I have split the pictures up into several entries. You can see more photos from Kyoto and other cities in the Japan category, and also read about the trip in the zine I wrote. Kyoto is famous for its cherry blossom, but sadly we were there a couple of weeks earlier than it comes out in full bloom. You did see the odd bud here and there though.