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TOKYO - 11 August

This is not real

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This is not real

As for sleep, there wasn’t much. On alternate nights, following a good dose of CNN (a horrifyingly revealing press conference with Donald Rumsfeld, for example, and a wonderfully brave, angry diatribe against tobacco companies by the ex-Winston man – see www.winstonman.com) my eyes finally closed. But two of the four nights were sleep-free. I rested my eyes at breakfast, sitting looking out at the green pond in the hotel garden, and once in the interview suite again, looking into the eyes of the succession of eager strangers, found fatigue slipping away, as if irrelevant in the face of these strangely intense encounters.

Last night we were taken out to eat at a restaurant by Gaga's aquisitions chief, Mic Sakamoto and his team. We sat on tatami mats in a private room in the restaurant, which was originally founded by and for kabuki players. Over a succession of small, delicious, dishes we discussed the state of Japanese cinema, and in particular the desires of the audience. The stars of the moment are Korean and this has led to unexpected shifts in the market. Apparently one Korean film sold 300,000 copies of a ‘making of’ documentary DVD before the release of the film itself, very successfully. My chopstick technique had improved, marginally.
 
Today, at the airport, I admired the displays of food trays helpfully laid out in the windows of the cafeterias and restaurants. Perfect replicas of the real thing, including the delicious aduki bean and gelatinous rice-ball desert known, I think, as Zenzai.

In one shop there was a notice: this is not real, do not eat.

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Breakfast view



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Poster signing



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Farewell dinner



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To the airport



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Airport Cafeteria



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Airport food



Text © Sally Potter. All pictures © Adventure Pictures unless otherwise indicated