Category: Photo

My first morning in Tel-Aviv happened to fall on Saturday. This is what the city looks like on Sabbath. Everything is closed, streets are empty, public transit is not working. It feels strange and spooky but adventurous! It feels as if you have the whole city for yourself to explore.

Working as a Professional  Tourist.
One sunny morning while I was checking some ancient shrines in Kyoto I got a message from my friend Katerina:
– Do you want to work at Tokyo Museum of Advertising for a day?
– Hm… Doing what?
– Working. As a tourist. They will close the entire museum for the day and you’ll get 4 personal tour guides. All you need to do is listen and ask questions… and then you get paid.
It sounded like a damn good deal.

That day I took the first train to Tokyo and was at the museum by the set time. It belongs to Dentsu the famous advertising agency that almost entirely dominates the Japanese market.

The museum trains their staff by brining in english speaking guests who act as tourists.  It was a great experience. I felt that my teaching, design, people, and communication skills  all came together in one-of-a-kind job – a professional tourist. If you ever visit the museum in Tokyo you’ll likely hear fragments of the vast feedback that I left after my visit 🙂

Now I can say I have Japanese work experience. Otsukaresama deshita!

I have this strange (may be) obsession with food markets. I find them to be perfect places to soak in the real local culture. Something is always happening there: people, motorcars, carts, noises, sometimes animals, food trucks, beggars, weird stuff… plus you get to try all different kinds of food. Wherever I go I always take my camera to a local market. The more remote and exotic the place is the more exciting it is to explore its markets. Check my photos from Tarapoto, Peru from 2014.

This one is all about Japan. Whatever I show or say it’s never gonna be enough to describe how amazing this country is. Just like everything in Japan, the markets there are extremely organized and clean. If you believe that there’s a fish market that doesn’t stink like fish, there’s one right in the heart of Tokyo.

Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo. Popularized by Jiro Dreams of Sushi documentary

There’s an old fortune cookies factory hidden in San Francisco china town. They say it’s the only remaining one where cookies are still made by hand. As expected the place has all the traits of a typical tourist trap: it is central, they charge you for taking pictures, they try to sell you stuff.

However there’s something intrinsically charming about this cluttered gloomy joint.