I recently spent nearly a month in Japan and The Lady from Kitashimmachi comes from a sneaky photo I took of a passenger on the train to Kyoto. She was beautiful. Her face was expressive, her skin like porcelain, her hair jet black reflecting midnight blue. The look on her face was pensive but also surrendered into submission. She made me think of painted actors from the traditional Japanese Kabuki theatre, from Geisha tea houses from a thousand years ago and paintings by Matsumoto Basho.