It’s fall for sure…

November 17th, 2009 Japan, Travel, pictures

Here in Tokyo, it is (a) cool and (b) raining. It started getting dark around 4:00.

But at least I found my first maple tree in Koishikawa Koraku Park…

Japanese Maple Leaves - In the rain.

Japan Trip #2 Details

November 1st, 2009 Japan, Travel

I’ve got all the bookings done for my second trip to Japan; I went in the spring to photography Cherry Blossoms, now I’m going back to photograph Fall Colours.

This is my Itenerary:

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
15
Leave US
16
Tokyo (arr)
17
Tokyo
18
Tokyo
19
Tokyo (dep)
Nara (arr)
20
Nara
21
Nara
22
Nara (dep)
Kyoto (arr)
23
Kyoto
24
Kyoto
25
Kyoto
26
Kyoto
27
Kyoto (dep)
Tokyo (arr)
28
Tokyo (dep)
Fly home

And here it is on a map, along with my trip earlier this year.

japan_cities

Things/Places to see/go:

Tokyo

Takao san Mount Takao, Temple, Hiking, Foliage.
8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Keio Railways offer the cheapest and fastest connections to Takaosan. Direct semi-limited express trains, which take about 50 minutes and 370 yen, leave the underground Keio Shinjuku station every 20 minutes. Takaosanguchi Station, the train’s terminal station, is located at the foot of the mountain.The JR alternative is by Chuo Line from Shinjuku to Takao Station (540 yen, about 50 minutes), where you transfer to the Keio Line and ride one more station to Takaosanguchi Station (120 yen, 2 minutes).

Rikugi-en Gardens
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is a short walk from Komagome Station on the JR Yamanote line and the Tokyo Metro Namboku Line.

Koishikawa Koen Gardens with good fall colours.
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Koishikawa Korakuen is a 5-10 minute walk from Iidabashi Station (various JR and subway lines) or a 10 minute walk from Korakuen Station on the Marunouchi and Nanboku Subway Line.

Kyoto:

Tofuku-ji Said to be the best place for fall in Kyoto.
9:00 to 4:00. Tofukuji is a 10-15 minute walk from Tofukuji Station on the Keihan Main Line and JR Nara Line. By JR, Tofukuji Station it is just one station from Kyoto Station (2 minutes, 140 Yen by local train).

Fushimi Inari-taisha The ten thousand tori.
24 hours! The shrine is a three-minute walk from JR Nara Line Inari Station, 10 minutes from Kyoto Station. It is a five-minute walk from Keihan Electric RailwayMain Line Fushimi-Inari station.

Kiyomizudera Temple The “balcony” temple.
Hours 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. Kiyomizudera can be reached from Kyoto Station in about 15 minutes by bus. Take bus number 100 or 206 and get off at Kiyomizu-michi or Gojo-zaka, from where it is a 10-15 minute uphill walk to the temple.

Eikando Temple The “Maple Leaf” Temple. Lit up at night!
Evening hours are 5:30 to 9:00. Due north of Nanzenji Temple. From Kyoto Station, take city bus #5, and get off at “Nanzen-ji Eikando-michi.”

Gots to Sleeps Some!

MTWR 16-19 Jimbocho Sakura Hotel, Tokyo.
2-21-4 Kanda-Jimbocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0051
Jimbocho Station, exit A6 (Been there before; don’t need directions ;) )

RFSU 19-22 Nara Ugaya, Nara
4-1 Okukomoricho, Nara City, Japan
From JR Nara station (5min): After coming out the station, go past a Lawson (a convenience store you can see on your right) and cross the street. Keep walking straight and you will find UGAYA guest house on your right just before the end of the street.

UMTWRF 22-27 Guest House Yahata, Kyoto
544 Yahata-cho, Gojo-agaru, Nishinotoin, Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto-shi 600-8455
Take Kyoto city bus and alight at Gojo Nishinotoin.1 minute walk from any bus stops on Gojo Nishinotoin.

FS 27-28 Jimbocho Sakura Hotel, Tokyo

Logistics

Narita -> 東京 Tokyo 1000 円
1. Take the Keisei express train.
2. At Oshiage station, change to the Hanzomon subway line.
3. Get off at Jinbocho Station Z07.

東京 -> 奈良 Nara 14050 円
1. Tokyo Station
2. JR Nara Station

奈良 -> 京都 Kyoto 610 円
1. JR Nara Station
2. Kyoto Station

京都 -> 東京 13520 円
Should be obvious ;)

Back to Japan

October 24th, 2009 Me, Travel

At the end of November, I’m heading back to Japan for two weeks to photograph the fall foliage.

Links:

Tea Ceremony

October 18th, 2009 pictures

Anurag, Rika, and I went to Hakone gardens in Saratoga today for an afternoon of Japanese Tea Ceremonies.

I got tea, sore knees, and a good photo. Overall, this is better than yesterday when I broke a golf club.

Tea Ceremony

More aphids, ants, and their friends

September 25th, 2009 pictures

In real life, this is about a square centimeter…

Ants actually farm aphids, like cows, for the "honeydew" they produce; in reality, the honeydew is nothing more than high-sugar aphid poop.

Ants actually farm aphids, like cows, for the 'honeydew' they produce; in reality, the honeydew is nothing more than high-sugar aphid poop.

Fixing VLC and Matroska .MKV files on Snow Leopard (Mac OS/X 10.6)

September 24th, 2009 googlefood

Warning: Boring google food article.

Your problem:

Your Matroshka files played fine in Mac OS/X 10.5, but then you updated to Snow Leopard, and now you get tons of error messages, and they may (or may not) play.

Read the rest of this entry »

Still Life

September 12th, 2009 pictures

I like California. We have nice vegetables. This will be part of my dinner tonight.

Pepper Family Portrait

Pepper Family Portrait

Update! Pepper family missing and presumed eaten!

Last known photo of pepper family.

Last known photo of pepper family.

The little red pepper and the light yellow Hungarian pepper next to it were so sweet, they would have been overpowered in the stir fry, so I made tsukemono (Japanese quick pickles) out of them. That’s what’s on the plate to the right.

Airline Math

August 26th, 2009 Me

I had booked a flight from San Jose to Lewiston, Idaho to visit my Dad & Stepmother on their vacation.

The flight cost $450.00

Then I decided to change the booking so I had 2 more days.

It would have cost me an additional $800 to change the flight; total $800+450 = $1,250.00

Instead, I canceled the flights and booked a new set of flights for $399.00

$399 + $450 Credit – $150 cancellation fee = $700.00 net.

Random IPhone Photos

August 22nd, 2009 funny, pictures

The camera built into the IPhone is pretty crappy. But then again, sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you at the time…

Safe Working Conditions

Demonstrating the highest level of commitment to workplace safety.

Japanese Food

When I was in Japan and would eat at a restraunt, this is typical of the meal. 800 yen ~ $8

Evil Gas Station

People learn that certain things are a certain way, like the brake is on the left. Eventually, they develop subconscious affordances such as brake instead of push left foot.
The gas station nearest to me obviously understands the affordance of cheapest button is on the left.

Prawns

When people don't eat enough shrimp, they grow into these monsters. I think I saw one of them fighting Godzilla.

ewww brussel sprouts

This is apparently how brussel sprouts grows in the wild - In the form of a club for striking people.

I don’t like bugs…

July 5th, 2009 pictures

Aphids at work. No, they’re not working; I took this at my office.

Aphids

Because Mac Tech is boring…

June 14th, 2009 Japan, pictures

A pair of pictures from Japan that I’m slooooowwwwlllllyyyy getting through…

Holy water, temple, Nikko, Japan

Kaminarimon Gate, Sensoji / Asakusa Kannon Temple

Logic Pro and Samson C01-U

June 14th, 2009 googlefood

This is a boring googlefood page: How to get Logic Pro to recognize a Samson C01U microphone.

Read the rest of this entry »

Why does it take me so long to post photos?

May 12th, 2009 Uncategorized

Because I’m such a tinkerer and perfectionist. 1800 photos don’t magically go through photoshop automatically ;)

Before
Edited with Picassa
 
After
Edited with Photoshop
Before   After

Problems: Photo too blue. Bag on girl on left blown out. Background crooked. Lighting flat. Colours drab. Composition makes it look like I’m nailed to a cross.

 

Remove colour cast. Warm up overall colour. Push colours. Burn bag. Increase contrast in quartertones. Straighten and re-compose to balance white purse against brown plaque. Burn background to focus down and to middle.

Epic video of the day!

April 28th, 2009 Link

We didn’t start the flame war!

On Japanese

April 26th, 2009 Japan, Me, Travel, Uncategorized

One question everyone is asking me since I got back from Japan is “How well did you do with your two semesters of Japanese? Were you able to get by?”

The answer is yes and no… I have the vocabulary of your average three-year-old child, and grammatical structures to match. In English, I would be able to say “I would like to buy a ticket on the Shinkansen to Toyko,” in Japanese I could get the point across with “ときょに しんかんせんで いきます おねがいします”, which literally means “To Toyko using Shinkansen Go Please.”

In fact, “___ please” turned out to be quite a useful little phrase. Ordering in restaurants became a matter of looking around, seeing someone eating something that looked good, and saying “that please.” Of course, it didn’t always work out – Theoretically, if nobody was eating anything that I wanted to eat, I would have to leave, hang around outside for 10 minutes, then go back in and try again.

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for was all the kanji. You see, Japanese is written in a combination of two alphabets and thousands of Chinese characters called kanji. And my courses don’t teach any kanji.

Because of this, you find yourself left in situations such as arriving at the train station and wondering when the next train to your destination is leaving…

jpt-20090404-0002

Then you have to find the station on a map and figure out how much the ticket will cost…

jpt-20090403-0076

And, of course, once you figure it out and buy a ticket, you have to try and discover (a) which track the train is departing from, (b) which car you should be in (because sometimes the trains end up splitting and going in two directions), and (c) which seat you have to sit in.

jpt-20090325-0074

By the way, awesome bokeh in the background on that picture!

Sometimes it didn’t matter that I couldn’t read kanji, because the meaning was completely obvious:

jpt-20090331-0025

And other times, my lack of kanji-ability didn’t matter, because I doubt it would have helped me figure out what some things were:

jpt-20090331-0024

The English on the box says “Flash Over: Here is the thing I have been longing for. Transformation of extra quality is now completed. Experience yourself with this satisfaction.” Given that this was on a shelf near the boob cream, my theory is that it’s either a herbal anti-depressant or a vibrator.

I had brought my Japanese textbook with me, and I decided to go back to the beginning and start looking up all the Kanji for words that I didn’t know. Of course, studying isn’t exactly barrels of fun while you’re on vacation, so I decided to force myself to learn – I decided I would only order things in restaurants if I could read the name of it (with the help of a dictionary, of course) off the menu. Of course, I was buying most of my meals at convenience or grocery stores – this was to save money, not an unintended consequence of not ordering food I couldn’t read. (yeah right, says the peanut gallery.)

I had some success and some failures. For example, I decided to have coffee and cake in Shibuya, and managed to figure out how to say the name of the one at the bottom right of this picture:

jpt-20090325-0013-2

Of course, when the waitress came and asked for my order, I opened the menu and immediately mental-blocked on whether the ショート at the end was pronounced “shouto” or “tsuuto”, so I just said the first part. Which, of course, is the name of the dessert at the top of the menu. Incidently, it’s “shouto” for “shortcake.”

I also discovered that riding the train or bus became a free game of kanji-flash-cards, as they both would display on a screen the same of the next stop in both kanji and english. Sometimes I had no clue – Sometimes I had almost one part. And this was my great triumph; three weeks in, I successfully read the name of this bus stop.

jpt-20090408-0033

Obviously, I’m easy to please – “His great transformation occurred when he read the name of the bus stop.” If my life was a novel and that was the back-cover copy, I don’t think I’d buy it.

Kanazawa

April 14th, 2009 Japan

I am in Kanazawa right now – the Wikitravel article says to “remember your umbrella, because it rains a lot.” Of course, I left my $5 umbrella in Osaka.

My first two days here, the weather was pretty nice and warm – I thought “wow, I don’t see why they say it rains all the time.”

You guessed it – whistling at the wind. It rained all day today.

Tomorrow I leave here for Tokyo, and my last full day in Japan. Then a nice (sarcasm) 14 hour plane ride, and I return to my normal life of sitting in a cubicle for 10-12 hours a day instead of exploring temples and shrines. Oh well, the vacation was nice while it lasted, and work is what enables me to take a month off for travelling.

Photos

April 11th, 2009 Uncategorized

Incidently, I know the photos from my trip that I’m putting up right now look like crap – they’re the low-resolution JPEG versions of the RAW files that my camera generates, and I’m “editing” them in Picnik instead of photoshop.

Once I get home, I’ll start photoshopping pictures and replace them with half decent ones.

Manga Cafe

April 11th, 2009 Japan, Travel

Tonight, I had nowhere to stay. I couldn’t extend my stay at the hostel in Kyoto because they were full, and I couldn’t show up in Kanazawa a day early because they don’t have a room for me tonight. After much deliberation, I decided to just take an easy day, then spend the night in a manga cafe.

I took the bus from the hostel to the JR train station and put my bags into lockers (600 yen, about $6) and took only my Japanese textbook, dictionary, notebook, pens, and my camera with the 50mm/1.8 lens with me.

I spent most of the day hopping around between different coffee shops; studying for a few hours, then moving to try a different chain. Got a lot of studying done!

At 10:00 pm, I headed over to the Manga cafe, and between my basic Japanese and their broken English, managed to get everything arranged.

So here’s what I get for 2750 yen, or about $27 (350 yen membership + 2400 for 12 hours):

I get all the bizzare Japanese soft drinks and soft ice cream I can handle. I’m drinking a pepsi float I made right now – tastes pretty good, but could use some rum. Perhaps I’ll run down to the convenience store and pick up a $3 mickey of Captain Morgan’s rum; yes, booze is incredibly cheap here.

All the bizarre brands of Japanese Soda you can drink

More Manga (japanese comic books) than I could read in a dozen lifetimes, especially since my rate is about 15 minutes a page, what with having to look up all the kanji. Note this is just one of the rows of bookshelves.

Row of Manga

An eerie walk down the row of dimly lit cubicles with zen sand sculptures under the transparent floor and “relaxation” music quietly playing.

Row of cubicles

In my cubicle, I have a PC, a Playstation 2, a 24″ television (not shown) and a small safe for my valuables that I managed to lock without setting the combination – Did I mention about having to look up lots of kanji?

In my cube

I also have a sofa that’s long enough to lie down on, but not quite long enough to fully stretch out. Still, it’s far better than airplane seating.

the sofa

Not shown – washrooms, showers, beer vending machine, row of slot machines, &c.

Now, granted, there’s other people moving around, making noise, &c, but that was true at the hostel. I just wish I’d thought to bring my earplugs with me for tonight…

Ah, the french…

April 10th, 2009 Japan, funny

One of my room-mates here at the hostel is French, and he has a French-Japanese phrase book. Naturally, it has a whole section on picking up women (or men), telling them you love them, and what to grunt during sex.

Kyoto

April 10th, 2009 Japan, Travel

I should have come to Kyoto first, rather than going to Tokyo first. Here in Kyoto, you can’t swing a dead panda without hitting three temples and two shrines, yet I’m beginning to show the dreaded signs of shrine-and-temple burnout.

Every day that I’ve been here, I’ve come up with a plan, and then ended up discarding it because I’ve become lost. I think I can safely say that Kyoto’s subway system is the worst one I’ve ever experienced.

To wit: There are different subway companies here, as seems to be normal in Japan. However, unlike Tokyo, they don’t share stations – they built stations a few blocks away from each other. And in many cases, they give the stations the same names. So, you think “I have to walk a few blocks to transfer to the Maratumatchi station,” but you walk in the wrong direction and find the other Maratumatchi station, then try to figure out where the heck you’re going.

Plus, add the fact that the closest station to the hostel had its name changed recently, and it doesn’t show up on most metro maps under either name, and you may judge my agony.

On the positive side, or negative, depending on your point of view, as of today I had to unfold the duffel bag that I brought to pack with stuff to bring home. I’ve been resisting buying anything that I couldn’t cart around in my backpack, but I finally found a few things that I’ve been searching for almost since I arrived, and I didn’t want to take the chance that I won’t find them again.

As of tomorrow, I have one week left… and as is becoming traditional, two photos…

Darren with cute girls, this time in kimonos.

Darren with cute girls, this time in kimonos.

Sakura and Building detail

Sakura and Building detail