Lavender

In a recent visit to Tokyo, my wife visited a departmental store and was given several stalks of lavender. It was promoting the use of its essential oil. "Flowers and leaf-stalks can be dried for perfuming bed-linen and to keep moths away from your clothes. Lavender essence is used commercially in the perfume, soap and pharmaceutical industries. Dried lavender is packaged in small cloth sacks and sold worldwide. Dried lavender is also used for cooking and for herbal cures. There is a strong cottage industry in the Beyond region of lavender products." (www.beyond.fr/floral/lavender.html)

We look forward to visiting a lavender farm in the near future.

Bridge again

Several people have asked me to post the published pix on the blog. Here it is. I m honored.:)

Odaiba Bridge

The 918 meter long suspended Rainbow Bridge links Odaiba town with the Tokyo Waterfront crossing Tokyo Bay underneath. The picture snapped at dusk evoked a sense of stillness and tranquility, a change from the hubbub and noise of commuters riding the subway in the Japanese capital. It shows that in the midst of an unprecedented pace of economic development as in the case of the Japanese rebuilding herself after WW II, there is a place for calmness and solitude.
NB. This pix was published in Singapore Straits Times Life Section "Shot & Saved: Japan" on 6 Nov 2007 :)