Tokyo Scenics

 

Now we are in the Seattle airport!  More than halfway home from Japan and back amongst American accents.  One funny thing about the trip is that practically all the English speakers we met in Japan were from either Australia or New Zealand.  Hakuba was loaded with people from 'down under'.  When we heard an American accent it was a notable event and other Americans thought so too - we only met 2 other American parties in Hakuba.  At one point, a Frenchman who spoke good English asked if we were Australian - this is the first time I have ever been mistaken for an Australian! Clearly the French have a hard time distinguishing between various English regional accents. Nora and I tried to learn the difference between a New Zealand and Australian accent - and I think I partially got it. We also learned a lot about Australia and New Zealand in the process.  And then yesterday morning we watched the BBC news in our hotel room and got a taste for a true plummyBritish accent.

Now all the accents are plain old American, but Nora and I certainly appreciate our own accent now!

Anyway, this post is all the scenic Tokyo pictures from just after we arrived.  I took a bunch more yesterday in the Imperial Gardens but those will wait until a later post.  Tokyo is a stunningly beautiful and clean city.  The city clearly spends a lot of time and effort on its gardens too.  All the trees by the streets are beautifully maintained.  While we were there the last of the yellow ginkgo leaves fell off of the trees.  At night many of the trees and streets were lit up with lights.

More to come!

Patrick

Tokyo Street Photography

 

As of right now, Nora and I are at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo waiting to board our flight home.  We are both sad to go home.  It has been a great trip and I took so many photographs that I'll be posting every day for the next week, at least, on our trip.

One of my favorite activities on this trip was street photography.  Basically trying to take artsy pictures of random people on the streets.  When I was in college I took a lot of black and white photography lessons.  I had to develop and print my own film and I did a lot of street photography - walking the streets of Boston with my Pentax K1000 loaded with Kodak Tri X in hand.  Needless to say, but it has been a while since I did any street photography.  And I have never done street photography with color 'film'.

Anyway, Tokyo is perfect for street photography and I had a good time with it.  I even brought a tiny camera (Ricoh GRIIIx) with a large APS c crop sensor and a fixed 40 mm lens just to use on the streets.  It was small enough to not scare people and yet took awesome, high-resolution pictures.  I brought other cameras for the skiing and landscapes, but ended up using the Ricoh the most.

I did miss some pictures that I regretted - a dad with kid on his shoulders in a crowd looking right at me as they passed but I had pushed the macro flower setting button by mistake and they were not in focus.  But the camera did pretty well at catching the focus quick.  The other big regret was a newly married couple and entourage when I just chickenned out.  But in general I think I did pretty well.  I posted some of my favorite street photos on my first Tokyo Post (click here).

Patrick

People wafting the temple smoke onto themselves for good luck

If you look closely you can see me taking the picture

Nagano and Hakuba

 

Snow monkey

Nora and I took the bullet train to Nagano and on the way we could see Mount Fuji out the train window.  Then from Nagano we took a detour to see the snow monkeys on our way to the ski area at Hakuba.  The snow monkeys were a little scary looking, but the walk in to see them was about a mile on this trail cut into a steep slope through the cedar trees.  There was new snow on the trees and the steep slopes and ravines etc reminded me of the Hokusai prints I've done as puzzles recently (Hokusai is a very famous 'Edo Period' Japanese artist - his most famous images are the views of Mount Fuji and the big Wave).  I felt like I was in a Hokusai print - all it lacked was little splashes of red everywhere.

On our arrival at the hotel in Hokuba, we were checking in when there was a big earthquake (see Nora's video clip at bottom of post).  It went on for quite a while and I was trying to be casual about it - after all, earthquakes are supposed to be common in Japan.  But then I looked at the lady who was checking us in and she was terrified.  I asked her if this happened frequently and she said no.  That's when I knew it was serious, but it ended shortly afterwards. We were around 50-60 miles from the epicentre of the magnitude 7.6 quake and on the coast near the epicentre there was quite a bit of damage.  The aftershocks continued through the evening.  At dinner there would be a tremble and all the guests would nervously look around at each other.  

Now for the past 2 days Nora and I have been skiing. The area has not gotten its usual amount of snow - so no deep powder skiing - but the skiing has been good.  We rented gear, and for the first time in ages I am not using tele gear - but hard core locked down heels and heavy skis.  It is quite the change!  The best thing about the skiing is that the restaurants on the mountain are both very good and cheap.  In fact, everything is surprisingly cheep.  Our ski rentals and lift tickets are about 1/3 what they would be in the United States, and a nice meal on the mountain for two with a hot chocolate and craft beer is around 20 dollars.

Anyway, more to come!

Patrick

Happo One ski area

Walking to see the snow monkeys

Entering the snow monkey park

Boarding the bullet train

View of Mount Fuji from the train window

Nora's video of the earthquake - she caught just the end of it

Japan Tokyo Arrival

 

Nora and I have been in Japan for a week now. We spent our first 4 days in Tokyo and then took the bullet train to Nagano and a car to our ski area in Hakuba. In this post I'll just cover the first few days in Tokyo.  I'll cover the different aspects of our visit in greater detail, but thought I'd just start with a summary post.  I'll do another quick summary post of our adventures since Tokyo next.  I've been taking so many pictures that I could not wait until we got home to start posting.  So here is Tokyo.

My main impression of Tokyo is that while it is very crowded it is also weirdly orderly and very clean. It has stunning parks and is a beautiful city.  The last city I visited was Seattle and you had to worry about crime and homeless people were everywhere.  No so in Tokyo.  I did not see any homeless people, and my impression is that there is no crime.  Yesterday I even left my backpack in a ski shop and returned to get it after skiing.  Everyone is incredibly polite.

But I think my favorite thing about Japan is the food.  There is such a variety of good food, and we have literally not had a bad meal.  It is also so much more than just sushi and sashimi.  I think my favorite meal is breakfast and the fermented mustard greens.  In addition to the usual pork products I have started to have a salad for every breakfast.  I think I might start doing this at home too.  Nora and I also love all the noodle meals.  I continue to be impressed with all the little ingredients - pickled things, wild vegetables, grains, all sorts of local things.  The variety is amazing.  

Anyway more to come!

Patrick

Imperial palace gardens

Supposedly the busiest intersection in Tokyo

Japan has the best breakfasts - I love the fermented mustard greens!

Tokyo Fish Market

The king and snow crab prices are competitive with Alaska prices!

Akasura Temple crowds

Tokyo Park