[Leica] Back from the Land of the Rising Yen ( LONG) - PART 2

[TTAbrahams@aol.com]

On Tuesday the 14th, Shintaro, Kenjiro and I took the bus to Tsukuba to have 
a look at the Nuclear Research Facility there. Tokio provided the expertise 
and the tour included the 3km long tunnel for the "Big Gun" as well as 
several of the smaller accelerators. Not being a nuclear scientist I cant 
provide much technical expertise, except for the sheer size of the facility, 
the
 "Belle" detector (has something to do with antimatter") weighs in at 3000 
tons and is built to tolerances that put Leica's to shame. The smaller 
accelerator is more visually interesting as you can see more of it in one go 
(3km is almost 2 miles long and although brightly lit, it is simply too big 
to take in). Tokio's friend Nobu, a master machinist had designed a guidance 
system for the smaller system and after we had drooled over machineshop (some 
stuff there would REALLY make Rapidwinder production go smoother) we went and 
looked at these very intricate guidance installations (they can be adjusted 
to micron tolerances with handwheels!). Nobu is also a dedicated camerabuff 
and his work desk was piled high with lenses and cameras that were in a 
variety of stages of repair, or disrepair, depending on point of view! Of 
course. Tokio is also a gourmet and expert on Japanese cooking (if he wasn't 
such a nice guy one could really hate him!) and took us to a tempura 
restaurant for lunch. Of course it was perfect (I am a bit worried about 
entropy here!). Now. Tsukuba is a "science-city", there are several research 
facilities there, including a NASA operation, the KEK and much more. In a 
city of about 150 000 people there are 10 000 PhD's. After having ridden with 
Tokyo around the city for a while, I suggested a small yellow warning 
triangle, modelled after "Baby On Board" sign so common here. Except this 
should read "Warning. Research Scientist Driving"! 
Tsukuba is a new town, 20 years ago it was a farming community, but the 
rising land prices in Tokyo made it advantageous for these facilities to sell 
off the land in Tokyo and relocate too much larger space in Tsukuba. It looks 
very much like a North-American planned community with wide avenues and 
modern housing. It somehow looks like a medium sized campus town seen through 
the eyes of a severely dyslexic person. All signs are in Kanji, but the 
shapes are familiar, McDonalds, KFC, Wendy's (it is after all a student city, 
they need junk food to function). We took the train back to Tokyo (90minutes 
ride) and I discovered another facet of Japanese life. "The Commuter Catnap". 
I was sitting there looking out of the windows at the scenery and when I 
turned and looked at my fellow passengers (about 40 in that railcar) they 
were all deep asleep, it looked like a scene from a sci-fi movie, "The 
Somnabulist Strikes Again". Somehow everybody has a built in timer to get 
them out of this coma about 60 seconds before the train pulls in to the 
correct station.
 All my sightseeing wasn't this rural, of course we roamed through Tokyo 
during other days, across the famous "rainbow" bridge to the new island, 
filled with modern architectural wonders, the Fuji TV center with its walkway 
between the two towers, this walkway has a huge ball suspended around it and 
it somehow makes me think of old bias-ply tires with busted sides (you know, 
the dreaded bubble that used to show up as a "thunk, thunk" sound seconds 
before the tire blew! We also used the excellent ferry-system around the 
Tokyo River network (great way of seeing the city) and I managed to get some 
shot of the famous Ashai Brewery Building. This has a sculpture on the top 
that is supposed to be a golden flame, but it has been renamed by the locals 
as the "Big Dogsh..t" and it does look remarkably like that. It cannot be 
easy to be an architect and see your vision being thus brutally renamed!
 Evenings in Tokyo was either spent at the Yaginuma's home, eating and 
drinking and talking or at the "Mechanism Club" a sort of loosely grouped 
gang that would hang out at the Lumiere Camera store. Imagine a student 
dorm-room with glass cabinets along the walls holding 100's of cameras and 
lenses, ranging from simple PS cameras to Zeiss Contarexes and Leicas and 
lenses of an incredible variety and in the center a couple of low tables and 
mismatched chairs and sofas. This is where the true "nuts' meet, in the 
backroom are a lathe, milling machine, soldering irons, sandblasters, etc. 
and the tables are littered with a variety of projects, from someone's 
home-made Amplifier to a dozen or so cameras. I unearthed an original black 
paint M3 from under an empty pizza box! There were ½ dozen Ricoh Half-frame 
cameras there with non-standard lenses (Kodak 44 mm Ektars, Domiplan 35/3,5 
etc). This is an ongoing project, start with a cheap camera and rework it and 
see what happens. Members show up at 6-7 a clock and often spend 4-5 hours 
every night there (sort of Techno version of the British Pub). Here and there 
are piles of 78's vinyl records and LP's and now and then someone would put 
on a record and anything from Beatles to Billy Holliday or Bach would erupt 
from the speaker system. One evening I complained about a sore right arm 
(from having dragged to many cameras for too long time), the Ivory 
Softrelease maker immediately gave me an excellent massage and when the 
Doctor member arrived he proceeded to give me acupuncture (and it worked very 
well, no more pain!). Once he was through doing it, he want back to 
re-soldering the amplifier connectors (he did admit that if he had read the 
instructions it would have been faster, now it took him three weeks of 
evenings!). Now and then somebody would get up, count the people around the 
various worktables, and ask what we wanted to eat and call for take out food. 
It was a most genial group and though some language problems occurred, 
translations assistance was quickly provided by somebody nearby. The owner of 
Lumiere, Kikuchi is a master camera renovator and also specialises in 
painting cameras. Now and then you would find a nice looking Nikon SP in 
gleaming black, or a hammertone finished 3F Leica with a bright red 
collapsible Elmar 50/3,5 on a counter or table. There is a great resurgence 
in using the older style of cameras, particularly "Barnack-Leicas" as the 
Japanese designate the screwmount Leicas. The M's are still pricey, it is 
rare that you see a M2 or M3 under US$ 1500 (and even at that price level 
they are fairly beaten up), so the 3C's and 3F's allows the more user 
oriented Leica aficionado a chance to own them. This has been partly fuelled 
by the availability of high quality lenses available in 39mm screwmount from 
companies like Cosina, Ricoh, Konica, Minolta and Kobalux. These are not the 
collectible Leicas that are being "defaced", these are the $3-400 3F's and 
3C's we see at the swapmeets and in stores over here. 
 This travel report has not touched on the camera-end of the trip. I will do 
that in a separate write-up, thus allowing those on the LUG who get easily 
offended by mentioning the use of non-Leica lenses on Leicas the opportunity 
to ignore it!
Sayonara,
Tom A
 
Tom Abrahamsson