Category Archives: Travel

Gardens by Day and Night

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The hotel I have used on my recent visits to Tokyo is one of a group of hotels in one location.  Between each of the buildings is a garden.  It is a peaceful place to hang out (even when it was as hot and humid as it was when I was first there) and it has temples, bells, a lake and lots of places to rest and contemplate.  In the evening, it is subtly illuminated providing a very different feel compared to how it is during the day.

On some occasions, music was piped in.  One evening there was a guy playing some sort of flute as he wandered around the garden.  I assume he was hired to do so rather than just showing up and playing but you never know.  He was fighting the noise of the cicadas when it was hot!

Rice Fields in the Country

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A feature of the Japanese countryside is the amount of rice that is growing everywhere you go.  I was often amazed to see small sections of rice growing in little spaces between developments of buildings and homes.  Further out, where there is more space, the rice fields are substantial.  These rice fields were in Ibaraki prefecture.  As the sun got lower in the sky, the tops of the plants caught the light nicely as they blew in the breeze.  It had quite a peaceful feel to it all.

Back Streets

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Part of my exploration of Tokyo involved wandering around some back streets.  The city felt so safe, I wanted to see what was going on away from the main activity.  The streets were a maze of routes to get around which is hardly surprising given the age of the city.  Lots of little shops, bars and homes were tucked away, hardly any great distance from big office buildings.  The contrast was quite obvious.  People were about but it wasn’t busy.  Seeing them on their way at least made me aware that these parts of the city were not devoid of life.

Pokémon Anyone?

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I visited Akihabara twice while in Japan.  Once was for a meeting with a client company that was based there and the other was when I was exploring.  This area is known for a lot of entertainment associated with animation and it has a lot of visitors that are into comics and animation.  It also seemed to have a large number of people playing Pokémon Go judging by the way they were all standing around playing with their phones.  I did see one guy with a phone and a tablet in both hands so he could play two games at once I guess.  I’ve never played the game so I can’t speak to whether it is good or not but it still seems to be really popular.

Akihabara at Night

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One of my meetings in Tokyo took place in the Akihabara district.  The company had a cafeteria on one of the higher floors of the building which served food and beer after work and they invited us up there.  Aside from having an enjoyable meal and fun company, we also got to enjoy the view of the city as the sun went down.  Tokyo is a city that is lit up at night and it looks beautiful.  I took along a camera because that’s what I do and grabbed a few shots of the view.  It would be good to have set up a time lapse as the sun went down.  If I ever get invited back, maybe I’ll try and get that done.

Tokyo Station

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I briefly saw Tokyo Station last time I was in Japan.  This time I wanted to take a better look.  While the station has been significantly redeveloped over the years, the west frontage that looks towards the Imperial Palace has retained the brick structure designed and built over 100 years ago (although some rebuilding was necessary over the years).  I think it is an interesting looking building and an interesting contrast with the high-rise developments around it or even the old buildings that can still be found in the city.

I got there in mid-morning and my brain was obviously not firing on all cylinders.  The front was in shade with the sun quite high in the sky and I thought for some reason I had left it too late.  I ended up taking a bunch of pictures of the building, none of which I was terribly happy with given the shadow on the front and the bright overall conditions.  I did shoot some of the details around the hallways and overhangs which were fine.

It was only later when I returned from the Palace grounds that I realized which way the building was facing and that the sun had now come around to the front of the station, not retreated.  Consequently, things were a lot more brightly illuminated.  Let’s not kid ourselves.  Midday sun is not the greatest thing for shooting but, for getting snapshots for the trip, this was a significant improvement.  With such a wide and low structure, a panorama was obviously going to be tried!

Crewing a Recce Jet

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I was on the wrong tower at Hyakuri when the crews came out on the recce ramp to crew up.  Rather than get down and move around and potentially miss it, I accepted that shooting through the trees would have to do.  The ground crew did their work efficiently and the flightcrew walked around the jet before jumping in.  Soon they were powered up and coming towards us.  This was early in the day and the beginning of a fun day out!

An Intimidating Statue!

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The walk back from the Imperial Palace grounds to the station took me by a statue.  This was an impressive looking warrior on horseback.  The weathering of the statue, the shadows cast by the high light and the intensity of the expressions of both him and his horse quite caught my imagination.  I found myself wandering around all side and starting at this work for quite some time.  As a whole it was impressive but I loved looking at the details and the sense of motion the artist had captured.

A Loaded Black Hawk

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The UH-60 Black Hawk is a pretty neat helicopter but in the standard fit, it is not terribly exciting.  However, I do like it when they are kitted up with a lot more stuff.  The external stores support system makes them look very purposeful and a flight refueling probe is another good addition.  The UH-60JA at Hyakuri had both with tanks fitted to the pylons.  It was at the far end of the ramp so, when it took off, I couldn’t get anything worthwhile.

It returned later in the day and came almost directly overhead.  Shooting a dark blue/gray helicopter looking straight up on a cloudy day is not a great combination but you aren’t going to ignore it.  I wish it had flown a few patterns or even taxied by, but I guess it was not to be.  Still, it was good to see it up close.