W/NW The Streets of Yokohama!

You have a super good eye for female beauty. That, and there seems to be an unusually (or maybe usually) large population of lovely ladies in Yokohama.

Is there by any chance a city or town in Japan, where unwed gentlemen can go to find a wife? I'm thinking of a small city called Singkawang in West Kalimantan - it's about half way between Pontianak and Kuching in Sarawak (Malaysia), a few hours by bus from either, where unmarried men of a certain age, mostly Chinese and from such countries as Taiwan andor KOrea, can access a web site, pay a fee and travel to Indonesia to meet an intended bride of the same age.

I've been to Singkawan once, and while in general terms it isn't a place to heat the blood, apparently this 'matchmaking system' works well and over the years a fair few thousand lonely men aged over 40 have met and married suitable ladies of much the same age. By way of a disclaimer, let me say I was traveling overland on one of my usual photo trips, from Pontianak to Sarawak (foreigners can cross the border by land in a few places in Indonesia) and I was thrre for a day of sightseeing, not to find a second bride as I'm already long-term happily wedded and one partner suits me fine.

Obviously I didn't check all this out personally, but at the time of my visit (2014 or 2015) the manager of my hotel told me the cost of finding a suitable match was about US $6600 which I recall was exclusive of airfare but did include accommodation for a week in a local budget hotel and one or two Chinese banquets. Allowing for inflation, the fee is likely more now. The ladies it seems pay a much lower price as salaries in Indonesia are less than in the West, so eminently sensible, this.

I've not Googled this, but I recall there were online sties about this. So anyone interested, please to hit the keyboard.

Let's now return to photography and Mike's photos. I marvel at how you are able to achieve such closeness (visually) and seemingly rapport of a sort with your subjects. In Australia and I'm sure other places in the West, if I were to try this I would surely be attacked with umbrellas and well-manicured fingernails by a mob of outraged females screeching about my obvious invasion of their privacy. You are a brave man indeed. Kudos to your courage in all this.
 
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