travel

photography / travel — 8 Comments
28
Jun 09

Life-size Gundam in Odaiba

Had some time yesterday to visit the 1/1 Scale Gundam (RX-78-2 model) in Shiokaze Park, Odaiba (get off Daiba station on the Yurikamome line). At 18 meters tall, it is a thing of beauty.

gundamblog-1

It smokes, it lights up! Too bad the weather was not cooperative that day.

gundamblog-2

I’m not liking the lights they put on the eyes, though. It ruined a lot of photos.

gundamblog-3

It’s interesting how, at events like these, everyone has their mobile phones taking photos and videos. I wonder how many terabytes are taken every day.

GundamDark-1-2

While the 18m Gundam looks awesome, the 4000 ton, 120 meter daibutsu (big buddha) at Ushiku can destroy it with just a flick of a finger.

daibutsu-gundam2

Good thing the buddha is peace-loving.

travel — 2 Comments
22
Mar 09

buttered potato

JagaBataThe sign says じゃがバター (jaga bata), buttered potato. Jaga is short for jaga-imo, which means potato,  and bata is butter. This was taken near the Kairakuen park in Mito.

photography / travel — No Comments
31
Dec 08

sunshine 60 road

While waiting for meema, I was able to do a brief photowalk at the Sunshine 60 road in Ikebukuro (street view).  It was full of people and of hard-working placard-carrying japanese trying to coax people into buying bargains, donating blood or going inside a manga kissa.





Does anyone know if the japanese have a particular term/word for these people?

travel — No Comments
21
Nov 08

Golden Pavillion

pond golden sky blue japan rokuon-ji zen temple gold kyoto kinkakuji pavilion travel

I’m now trying out if the photoblog-style theme the lightbox and photrade will work together. This is a photo of Kinkakuji ( Golden Pavilion ) that was  mentioned in a previous post.

Rokuon-ji (deer garden temple) or more popularly known as Kinkaku-ji ( golden pavilion temple) is a popular tourist destination in Kyoto. The top two stories of the building are covered with pure gold leaf. On the roof is a chinese phoenix. Originally built in 1397, it was burned down several times, the most recent one being in 1950.

Around the temple is a really beautiful Japanese garden. The pond in front of it is aptly called Kyoko-michi (Mirror pond).

I’d love to take a photo of this spot in winter.

travel — 2 Comments
20
Nov 08

Autumn Fantasy

photo of leaves in autumn

A quick post. Got this blog set up earlier this morning. Selected a photoblog-oriented theme. This is a test post for images. The image is from a recent trip to Kyoto. This one was taken in the gardens near Ginkakuji (“Silver Temple”)

The temple was under renovation, so I just took pictures of mostly the autumn scenes. The garden in Ginkakuji is much better than the one in Kinjakuji (“Golden Temple”).