It is National Holidays in Japan. Very quiet, but everything is open. I meet my American colleague and we went to a little art fair organized at the Hillside Terrace only for young dealers and young artists. It was the Art Fair '98 Daikanyama. There we met with Junko Shimada who owns Gallery Side 2, a one year old gallery. Junko, a very nice person used to work at 303 in New York. She did in Tokyo a show with Doug Aitken, Lincoln Tobier and she had some nice abstract painting by a very young artist name June Fujita. I mean I liked them.
We meet with Mr. Ota, from Ota fine Art. Young. He is a lender for Kusama and is working with artists such as Shimabuku and Tsuyoshi Osawa. Osawa is doing some ironic appropriation of Japanese traditional culture. For instance he created a Milk ceremony based on the very serious Tea Ceremony. Shimabuku does poetic and social project such as seeking deer in villages, offering organizing a café called The Carna Liberty Room or teaching kids to build house, shelter in the devastated Kobe area, after the earthquake. Tomio Koyama Gallery was exhibition few Murakami, Nara and I think a Peter Halley drawing. Gallery Masataka Hayakawa had Teresita Fernandez drawings and Marie-Ange Guilleminot little bags. Taro Nasu gallery was also here with Peter Bond photographs. We also met with Tsutomu Ikeuchi, director of the Röntgen Kunstraum Gallery which shows Kenji Yanobe. And with Horoshi Nomura from Taka Ishii Gallery. I should say Galleries. One in LA, one in Tokyo.
All these dealers were very, very sweet. Taking time, no pressure. The funny thing is that the fair itself could have been organized, size-wise, in half of Walker's Gallery 7. Does size matter?
After a quick lunch we visited a non-profit exhibition space called Watarium. It is a family run place located in a Mario Botta building. A nice little show was there by Christine Hill--her exploration of Tokyo. Fabrice Hybert playing soccer with a square ball and his very special swings (too bad I have no photos) and an artist from Thailand, Navin Rawanchaikul, offering cocktails in a little street, both installed in the galleries. I like the place and will try to meet the Watari family during my stay.
Back to the IH. Dinner in a very small place. Good. I resisted only
one thing which looked like a big snail. 
It is very rare but this night I was not brave enough. Walked through Tokyo.
I opened my computer for the first time and....
So far everything is perfect and new. Transportation in the city is very easy. The subway is convenient. The taxis are a little expensive but they are everywhere, so it is very easy to jump in when you cannot figure out, not where to go, but how to go.
So far it seems that contemporary Japan is very occidental, but of course this a very superficial feeling. The difference, as I can understand it after a few days in Tokyo, is in the way you interact with people. Language, of course, but also a very different relationship to time. It might seem slow from time to time, mostly in conversation. From time to time I have the feeling that they think I am hysterical. I start to speak as soon as there is a silence in the conversation. Then they don't say anything but they look at me with a smile. One has to take time and give time to the other. Silence does not mean that nothing is going on. I just have to get use to it and think about John Cage again or Merce Cunningham. One does not need to fill up the space.
This seems strange, looking at the city of Tokyo which is a total urban chaos. Every inch of space is used and there is the most eclectic sense of architecture. I'll take photos and it will help.