Looking out of the window of my hotel in Minato, there was a pond behind the building. It took a while to work out what it was but, on the weekend, it was easier to see. This is a fishing pond. It is in between all of the hotels and, even on a hot and steamy day, there were plenty of people fishing. I don’t know what the pond was stocked with and what the rules are once you catch something but I was more taken that this existed at all.
Cities are bustling places but old cities tend to have an advantage over newer ones and that is decent park spaces. When modern cities develop, all the land is valuable and there is a problem with preserving space. Older cities dealt with the preservation of space a long time ago and Tokyo is no exception. I got off the train at Shibuya and was walking up to Shinjuku. I went past some of the buildings from the ’64 Olympics and in to Yoyogi Park. On a Sunday morning, it was a really pleasant place to be.
In common with most of my trip, even first thing in the morning it was very hot and humid. Being close to the ponds and fountains provided a bit of relief although only a bit. Walking through the trees at least kept me out of the sun and that was a welcome break from the warmth. There were trails around the park that were getting plenty of use, some of the open spaces were being used for exercises by groups and individuals and some people were just sleeping.
I had hoped to walk all the way through the park up to Shinjuku but the area where the National Olympic Youth Center and the Meiji Jingu Shrine were meant the top area was blocked off the way I went so I had to divert out on to the street to continue my trek.
This post is about fish. No other reason than I was running through some shots and came across these pictures from the Ocean Coast Aquarium in Newport OR. Taking pictures of fish through thick aquarium glass is a bit of a crapshoot as the distortion can be bad and the potential for reflections is high. Since fish can be so fascinating, though, I always give it a go. Most of the shots turn out to be disappointing but a few work out. Some of the fish have happy looking faces (allowing for some anthropomorphizing) while others look sullen. You can let your imagination run riot.
There was a tank full of sardines at the aquarium that caught my attention. This was something that was really hard to photograph but I tried anyway. The sardines were swimming quickly in shoals and they looked much as you would expect them to – a sleek, silvery fish zipping through the water. The thing that caught my eye was they way that they opened their mouths to feed. The shape of the head is narrow and clean but, when they open their mouths, flaps of skin unfold to create a huge opening allowing them to scoop up food from a far wider area. A few of the shoal would do this at any one time so you never knew where to look but they would open wide for a second or two and then close up again. It totally transformed their appearance.
The walk along the beach in Deception Pass State Park starts out in amongst a lot of people. The West Beach near the parking lot had a lot of people enjoying themselves while we were there. However, they didn’t want to go too far it seemed as, when we started walking along the shoreline towards the North Beach, we rapidly found ourselves a lot more isolated. There was the occasional person passing the other way but we were, for the most part, on our own. Standing on the shore and looking out across the water on a sunny afternoon was really relaxing.
A weekend in Southern California for work was not my idea of fun but I did have a few hours free on the Sunday morning so I headed down to Santa Anna to the Lyon Air Museum. It is located on the opposite side of John Wayne Airport from the main terminal building and is not terribly obvious unless you look hard. Even the entrance road is a bit obscure and could be easily missed. However, once there, it was definitely worth the time.
The museum is in a modern structure and has an impressive collection. Supposedly the planes are all airworthy and they have some interesting ones there. Some of the collection will get their own posts. For now, here is an overlook of the museum and a few of the side exhibits that don’t get their own story.
When we were getting ready to leave Chicago, the city was in the process of extending the river walk. This had originally gone along the river up to Michigan Avenue. The first phase extended the walk to State Street and this was in place by the time we left. The plan was to take it all the way to the branching of the river. A few years have now passed and the plan is now a reality. To get from my hotel to my meetings took me along the river so I checked the walk out.
This proved to be a bit more tricky than I expected as it had snowed the night before and the surface alternated between clear, crunchy with frozen snow and slick with ice. Just what you want when walking close to a river! On the way back, things were warmer and a lot more relaxing. It is too early in the year for all of the businesses to be in place but you can see what will be there. One wine bar was open though with clear plastic igloos to give you some privacy and, more importantly, warmth.
You can now walk from the lake all the way to Lake Street. This is a great improvement and is a lot nicer than walking along Wacker and having to cross the streets at each bridge. Now I just need to find a reason to be back during the summer so I can hang out down there when it is warm!
A work trip to Dallas wrapped up a few hours prior to my flight home. I was flying out of Love Field so figured a quick detour to the Frontiers of Flight Museum just across the field from the terminal was in order. What I hadn’t appreciated was that tons of school parties had the same idea. The place was heaving with kids and being kids, they were doing everything at high speed and high volume. The inside of the 737 exhibit was not a great place to be!
Southwest has a big influence on the museum including a whole 737 and the front fuselage from another. They don’t dominate things though and there are plenty of other airframes both inside and out. I shall pick on a few favorites in due course but here is a sample of what was there. It was a brief visit but a fun one.
Wolf Point sits at the place in the Chicago River where it splits into the north and south branches. When I lived in Chicago, it was a park. It sat in front of the a building with a Holiday Inn and the Sun Times located within. It had a great view along the river in all directions. That view was obviously too valuable. The park is gone a some towers are now going up. One was already there when I visited and work is underway on the others. I’m afraid this is a shame to have lost a nice location. Also, if you were in the building across the river that had a view along the main branch, I imagine you are not too pleased to have lost your view and instead be looking at another tower!
In the UK, the puffin is a well recognized bird. The small body and large bill are easily identified and the coloring is pretty bright. I am struggling to think whether I have ever seen one in the wild as they live in some pretty remote places. I might have but I don’t recall it. The aquarium in Newport OR had a bunch of them though. While the coloring was a lot more subdued, there was no doubt that they were puffins given their shape.
Whether birds really have personality or not, you can imagine it with puffins. They seem to be very fussy in the way they move which is probably just a function of being quite a small bird. As they paddled around the pool and flapped their wings, we got a good look at their mannerisms. The enclosure was pretty compact so you were very close to them which allowed some good opportunities to get some shots. Seeing them out in the wild would be cooler but I don’t tend to hang around on cliff faces too often.
