I was mesmerized by the closing sequence of Hou Hsiao Hsien’s “Cafe Lumiere” the first time I saw it. I have never forgotten this hypnotic urban landscape in motion. Yesterday, as we were walking over a bridge near Ochanomizu Station, I suddenly realized that I was seeing this same scene again. These are the kinds of discoveries that make travel exciting and they are the reason I try to walk everywhere. When you travel underground it is faster at the cost of missing all the “in between” things. Some of my best travel experiences have happened somewhere in the space between my departure point and destination. Today’s discovery is a perfect example of one of those serendipitous moments and it is one of my favourite things I have seen in Tokyo so far.

Here is the closing sequence from the movie. It is shot in slow motion from a slightly different perspective than my pictures.

I waited for over an hour to get two or even three trains in the frame at the same time. These are the best shots I got. Sometimes there are even boats travelling up the Kanda River underneath it all. But…trying to get everything in the picture at the same time is like standing around waiting for a solar eclipse to happen by chance. Hou Hsiao Hsien probably sent an assistant up to the bridge and made him stand there all day filming.

Seeing this made me so happy.

A few days later, I went back to the bridge to try my luck again. After a couple of hours, I got this shot which I plan to print and display on my wall at home: