Tag Archives: travel

JAL’s Special A350

Japan Air Lines has been taking delivery of a bunch of Airbus A350s recently. I was interested to see them at Haneda where they seem to be based as opposed to Narita. Interestingly, for a plane with substantial range, they are being used from a lot of short sectors at the moment. On the station platforms, they had some posters about a special A350 that was celebrating the 20^th anniversary of a Japanese boyband, Arashi.

Fortunately, this jet was being used on internal flights and it was due back in to Haneda when I was there. With the crummy weather, the JAL terminal roof top viewing deck was fine for photos in the afternoon since, with no sun, there was no backlighting. The A350 came in to view and stopped in a cloud of spray from reverse thrust and then taxied back and parked right under me. Plenty of opportunities to get some shots of it.

Salesforce Park

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During our visit to San Francisco, some friends told us to check out Salesforce Park. This is a park that has been built on top of the transit center in the heart of the city. The transit center is, by demand, a large area so the space on top of it makes for a decent area. The park was fun to wander around. It is surrounded by some interesting buildings which will warrant their own posts in due course.

There are seating areas, children’s play areas, an amphitheater, a dome over an atrium for the transit center itself and plenty of plants. The plant beds are broken down into categories covering different types and plants and different origins for the plants. There are sculptures around the park including one that is a series of water jets. These are triggered by sensors in the transit center such that, as a bus drives beneath them, they squirt up. A bus driving the length of the lane beneath has a sequence of jets that will ripple along the sculpture. We were there when one bus passed beneath and, having been hoping for some action (aside from the occasional random jet of water), we were almost caught out when the wave of jets came by.

If we hadn’t been told about the park, I would never have known. Even when we got to the entrance area, it was a little inconspicuous. It is worth a visit if you are passing by. There is also a more interesting entrance than the elevators but that will have to wait for another post.

VC-10 at Duxford

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Duxford’s VC-10 has been there for many years. When I first went there in the 80s, it was on display in the same BOAC colors that it currently wears. However, I think, judging by the condition it is in now, it has undergone a repaint since I first saw it. The VC-10 is something I didn’t see much of in civilian service. The RAF examples where the ones I saw the most. The Duxford example is a great way to see how they were in their original incarnation.

Frost on the Leaves

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Early morning walks after a cold night mean frost everywhere. I guess I am accustomed to frost on hard surfaces but softer items, for some reason, didn’t seem like things that would have frost on them. Plants are not warm blooded so why wouldn’t the frost gather on the leaves too. This is probably obvious to everyone but me but I was quite taken with the frost crystals on the leaves.

Aside from the mere presence of frost, I was also impressed by the shapes that the frost crystals had developed in to. They were quite exaggerated and a decent size compared to the leaves themselves. Since it had been a cold and calm morning, getting shots of the leaves was easier than normal since usually the gentlest of breezes will cause motion in the leaves making a sharp shot hard to achieve. The stillness was my friend (and also made for a more comfortable walk since, without wind, the low air temperatures were not uncomfortable).

Framlingham Castle

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Suffolk is full of castles. A lot of groups fell out with each other and figured that castles were a necessary way to make sure you could take care of yourself. Framlingham is one of the more substantial ones that I have seen. There are multiple towers that surround the top of the hill with stout walls between them. It would be interesting to see what it looked like when the castle was the center of the community.

It dominates the surrounding area as you would expect of a castle. You can walk all along the top of the walls to complete a circle of the fortress and check out both the surrounding countryside and the large interior. I’m not a huge fan of heights so wandering around on the top of the walls is something I do with some trepidation. However, you go to these places to see everything so I’m not going to wimp out because of a little vertical drop!

Port Alberni River Mist

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The drive across Vancouver Island on our way back to the ferry was exceedingly pretty. The temperature in the passes was pretty low and what I imagine happens is that the mist freezes on to the trees. The result was these beautiful white trees looking like they had been created as some Christmas decoration. We were on a main road so no chance to stop and photograph them but, as we got down to Port Alberni, the mist was still around.

As we crossed the river, we got a view along the water between the trees with the mist hanging over the surface. It looked really beautiful. I stopped further along the road where I found a gap in the trees and could get down to the bank. Once out of the car, I figured that the cold temperatures could be handled for a short while and walked back to the bridge. We had a ferry to catch so I wasn’t going to spend too long exploring but this might prove to be a very photogenic place to explore if you had the time.

Haneda Seems to Be Home to Special Liveries

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I spent a little time at Haneda on a recent trip to Tokyo. It was not an ideal day for photography but it had its possibilities. One thing that really surprised me was that I seemed to see a bunch of planes with special paint schemes. I don’t know whether Japanese airlines just have a lot of specials or whether Haneda is the place that they all come but I saw a lot. One of them was from China too. Here are some shots of the specials from that day excluding one that will have its own post.

Butchart Gardens Christmas Lights

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While we got to Butchart Gardens before the sun set as seen in this post, the purpose of the visit was to see the illuminations. I had been there before during the day and knew it was a pretty garden but I didn’t know what to expect with the illuminations. I thought it might be pretty but was not expecting it to be so dramatic. The first are had some lovely lights within the trees with animated icicles. We then followed a route around the gardens to cover all of the areas. These areas also included displays themed around the twelve days of Christmas.

One area that really blew me away was a section under tree cover where they had lasers mounted on the tree trunks that scattered their light into the canopy above. The effect was magical and I spent a long time looking up at it as well as trying to get a decent shot of it. On one, the lens wasn’t originally zoomed out and so it drifted a little in zoom. The result was rather good but not what was needed. I like it but it will stay out of public sight.

Walking down in to the valley below the main house, the lighting was absolutely amazing. The density of light installations and the use of color was really impressive. The use of trees and plants to catch the light was great as was the use of some of the surrounding rock. They also had some streams of blue lights to give the effect of flowing water.

We had arrived at the gardens before the sun went down and we got in very quickly. There was no traffic. As a result, we had seen the whole display after dark relatively early in the evening. We were able to head back to town and, as we started to drive out, the traffic coming in was awful. We were sailing out but the cars were backed up the hill. I imagine it would take a long time to get in. I think our timing worked well.

Sun on The Snowy Mountains

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The ferry ride from Swartz Bay back to Tsawwassen was on a day that wasn’t particularly nice weather wise. And we emerged in to the open water from the islands, I was wandering about with the camera. The view to the mountains north of Vancouver opened up and they were in clear sunlight with the snow reflecting the warm winter light beautifully. It was a distant shot but a panorama seemed to be a good idea. Everyone on the boat seemed to be taking notice and plenty of people came out on deck to take their photos.

Dallas Sunrise

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A work visit to Dallas and I was meeting some colleagues for breakfast early one morning. Looking out of the window at the hotel and the view looked pretty dramatic. Everyone was heading to the window to get a picture. Making the best of avoiding a reflection from the window was pretty tricky but I managed to sneak a couple that minimized a view of the inside of the room. It only lasted a few minutes so the timing of getting there was lucky. A minute or two either way and I’d have been sitting at the table eating breakfast.