Walking in Tokyo: Project revisited

Walking in Tokyo, the blog, was launched at a time of professional despair - read joblessness - where an idea a day could not keep the gloom away. But ideas there were, and flowing at that, despite the harsh, critical and devastating scorn of close people fingering in disgust at ones late-student-like-dreamer-should-be-ashamed-of-oneself cuckoo. I believe this not to be unique and the repelling reaction of normal people despising your flights of imagination not a Japan specific trait. But it hurts all the same and blogging came almost as a relieve and released the hampered rush inside to write all about it. To write all about it, even cuckoos ideas like this one: Walking in Tokyo. Now that other professional activities are keeping Walking in Tokyo in semi-limbo state - it does not mean that the project is dead. On the blog screen at least - somewhat expanded or hinted at in my walking blog - Walking in Tokyo is alive and well in the realm of imagination. No, it's not only alive, it's thriving. Walking in Tokyo is the way I would like to visit other towns of this planet - a guiding experience where the focus is not on the historical, worn-out touristic spots, but on the daily life enhanced by the view and appreciation of a guide willing to show you his or her own version of what makes - at times - that daily neighborhood a darn good place to be today, now, right now. Walking in Tokyo is the anti official, chartered, licensed, authorized guide scheme; the one that for instance the Japanese authorities are trying and nurture by making the national exam to turn into a professional guide less difficult than getting a doctorate ( pass rate allegedly less than 10%!), or warning than non-official guides could be fined some US$ 3,000 for illegal activities. There are hints that even legal guides don't make a living out of it anyway. Walking in Tokyo project is in another league, a different realm. The lame Yokoso campaign to lure in more foreign tourists here, lame and doomed, despite TV spots (TV spots for Japanese!) showing - oh! so much smiling people like in stock pictures for business ads - will yield nothing, because it is shunning at the very grease needed to make such endeavor kind of work: people. Walking in Tokyo - an expandable concept to other towns, other spots, is exactly about that: people network. More on this soon.