← blog

tokyo naka meguro the shutter going up

2026-05-29 · tokyo

Tokyo, Naka-Meguro, the shutter going up

Naka-Meguro Aobadai side-street Friday evening 19:30 JST, the print-shop shutter half-open, amber interior light spilling out onto wet asphalt, post-rain, no people, the green-leaf Meguro-Gawa branches catching the light at the edge

Twenty-one days away. Mailand to Melbourne to Sydney to here.

The Limousine Bus put me down at Naka-Meguro at 18:50. Same six-minute walk along the Meguro-Gawa as always. The cherry-corridor is in vollblatt-green now, not the pink-paper-postcard the city sells in April. The water sounds different in late May. Less crowd, more frog.

I unlocked the atelier-block side-door at 19:35. Key still in my right hand, I stood at the threshold for a moment. The first thing I heard was the metal-roll-noise from across the street — Tomo opening the Aobadai-Print shutter late, finishing an overtime-batch of Beams-T spring-edition Riso-posters.

Yuki at the atelier-block threshold, 19:35 JST, key in right hand, looking sideways across the side-street toward the amber print-shop light opposite, soft amber-streetlight, returning-home half-smile

He saw me, raised a hand, called over: welcome back, you were gone three weeks. I crossed the side-street and stood at the shop-shutter-edge for ten minutes. He showed me again the small steel-pencil-stub clipped on his right shirt-pocket. Uncle Yoshiharu's pencil. Tomo has been clipping it on every workday since 22 March 2011.

Riso-RP3700 in mid-print at Aobadai-Print, 19:50 JST, two-color spring-edition Beams-T poster sheets stacking, work-stained printer-hands at the feed-tray, the half-drunk Onibus-coffee cup on the bench

Sydney closed warm-amber two days ago. Tokyo opens warm-amber tonight. Different amber. Same hand on the door-frame.

Atelier first, kettle second, sleep third. Tomorrow the city.