MG in JP. We Rising SUN!

In late February I took a trip with the beautiful Shino Yanagawa to her home of Japan. While there I planned to do a few things. I wanted to see a few of my friends who live there, visit some temples and get some feedback on the MotherGreen clothing line as a whole. Well I got to do that and a whole lot more.

From the beginning of my trip there was nothing but fun coming my way. We had a party at the good man Ryo's bar called "Ripple" (my Brooklyn heads might find this name familiar). We had a good time conversing with friends, listening to good music and eating some fried yam appetizers. The train system in Tokyo doesn't run 24 hours so if you miss the last train (which leaves around midnight) you're just left out like foreskin after a muslim birth. Being that we had a big group of people in the house of course we did just that. It turned out fine because we spent the evening with those who didn't make the train discussing Ryan Leslie, Caron Wheeler and a few other really good R&B acts.

To satisfy my thirst for temples and shrines, Shino's family took me to Kamakura to visit the large Buddha statue as well as other beautiful temple sites. After visiting the first temple we had a delicious lunch complete with grilled salmon, sesame tofu, spinach... the list goes on. The food was great as well as the service. Shino's father gave me the pleasure seeing him wearing a dope MG t-shirt. After a rare bird sighting we went to see the great Buddha. It was quite a sight to behold. There's even an entrance for you to view the insides and see how this great structure was put together.

Once done with Kamakura, I turned my sights back on Tokyo for some city living. I walked through neighborhoods like Shibuya, Ginza and Shinjuku. In Shibuya I was fortunate to have in store meetings with a few buyers and get some a professional Japanese perspective on what we were doing with MotherGreen. The response was positive and quite informative. I even left with a new business opportunity for MG. It felt good to have people in a foreign country recognize the effort and quality we put into our product. Wait til yall get to see then new stuff! Special thanks to my dear Shino for being translator slash business manager for me while on this trip.

To close out my trip Shino and I took a two day excursion to Kyoto. This was my opportunity to jump headfirst into ancient Japanese culture, pre Western cultural invasion. Kyoto is a very beautiful city and I recommend all those who can go to visit do so. I saw a golden temple, a Buddhist temple which only opens every 100 years, another Zen temple which opens every 33 years. Lets just say the mathematics were on my side for this trip. As we walked through the city seeing all type of young people visiting cultural treasures of their people I thought of home. I though about the lack of young people I see going to museums and the like to take in American art and history. I then thought about what these children were going to see and realized that we live in a baby nation. We have not been in existence as a country for 400 years yet. Other civilizations have faced whole changes in their national religion, changes in political ideology and... atomic bombs (yeah I said it) and they kept on truckin! We as a nation are facing serious issues with economics, healthcare and tolerance for our fellow citizens. It is more than possible for us to come out of this. We might just need to humble ourselves and *gasp* try some new ideas (perish the thought) .

Well until next time be optimistic and invent possibilities in your life. I'm inventing the possibility of having the greatest clothing company to grace the planet in quite some time. I seen it... like a Zenith (c) Ghost.

Photos taken by Shino Yanagawa (except the one she's in with me...a stranger took that)