Back then I was a young man wandering around Japan with my camera trying to absorb every shade and nuance of this exotic culture I had been thrust into. I was in the service, the Navy as a hospital corpsmen and occasionally was sent to Japan on both business and pleasure. Pleasure was always better.

Not speaking anything more than pidgin Japanese and a lot of that not fit for mixed company I used my camera to communicate as best I could. Most of the time the people took my picture-taking as a sign of friendliness and would willing pose for me, like this Shellfish Lady. The times they didn’t it was best to put the camera down and buy some shellfish, even if I gave it away later.

Back then in 1963 it was only 18 years after the end of WWII, although in my youth I didn’t put that fact together then. It is also why the majority of the people still wore the same style clothes as before the war and once you were away from Tokyo still lived very much as they had for generations. I just took everything in as a new exotic place that had been just created entirely for my benefit. It was also the beginning of a lifetime love affair with Japan.

This is image is a scanned version from the original slide taken back then. The slides and the people involved are aging and it’s time to share the experiences. Plus it just feels good to time travel. Long forgotten memories of that time are brought forward to be experienced again and again and reliving the past, during the good times at least, feels good from the comfort of my easy chair. My tea is getting cold so I must go and make some new. Let’s talk again later.