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| Saturday, 3-Jan-2004 00:00 |
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My Berkeley Calendar
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Eunice Avenue, North Berkeley
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North Beach & Columbus Street, San Francisco
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Chez Panisse restaurant, Berkeley
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Thanks to an on-line photo service called Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com) I made up some calendars for myself, a friend of mine here in Japan, and my mother back in California.
For my mother, I used pictures of Japan (look for them on a later date), but for myself and my friend, I made up calendars using photos from Berkeley and San Francisco I took during a November trip back to the US. It seemed appropriate as a reminder, since my friend and I both had lived there (separately, I hasten to add).
Shutterfly lets you display the pictures on their website in their original format, with the border and captions added to them, and if want to see them that way, drop me a line and I'll send you the URL.
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| Monday, 29-Dec-2003 00:00 |
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Mt Fuji in the Morning
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The pictures today I took during my commute on Saturday (yes, the office was open), as I crossed the bridge over the Tama River at Koremasa to catch a train on the other side to the office. Quick snaps, since I didn't have time to really focus.
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| Saturday, 27-Dec-2003 00:00 |
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Summer air show at Yokota Air Base 2 - The planespotters
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Arrayed along the flight line, right up against the barriers to the runway, were a long line of planespotters--guys armed with enormous cameras, ready to snap shots of aircraft doing flybys.
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| Sunday, 21-Dec-2003 00:00 |
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Summer air show at Yokota Air Base 1
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The crowds converge on the base gate.
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The Yokota AB flight line
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A Coast Guard helicopter from Hawaii
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Okay, it was back in August, but it seems a good counterpoint to the anti-war parade photos just below.
They call it the Yokota Friendship Festival, and it's the US Air Force's annual PR/community relations exercise. This base is, as far as I know, the only major USAF facility in the Tokyo area (the US military as a whole is mostly concentrated on the island of Okinawa way down south, though there are some bases on mainland Japan).
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| Monday, 29-Sep-2003 00:00 |
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Anti-War March
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On Saturday, I was down in the Kamiyacho neighborhood of central Tokyo with a friend when we encountered an anti-war parade. Something neither of us has seen for awhile (not since we left Berkeley, at least). This was on the other side of the hill from the US Embassy, so I have to wonder if they were headed that way.
Oddly enough, I didn't see anything about it in the next day's Daily Yomiuri, though there was a story about an anti-war parade in another country entirely.
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| Monday, 15-Sep-2003 00:00 |
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TV show shoot
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Checking the actor's mark
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Checking the actor's mark
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Obviously, the creative guy (in Hollywood, he'd have a ponytail)
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Last weekend, while having lunch at the Pret a Manger sandwich shop in west Shinjuku, I stumbled over a TV show being shot outside the place. They set up two scenes while I ate my crayfish-and-rucola sandwich, just outside the window where I sat.
One shot involved a fashionably dressed young woman in a big hat and carrying a shopping bag sauntering across the plaza (stopping in front of a signboard advertising "Fish and Chips, $3.50). The other involved a young woman leaving the sandwich shop, bowing to someone standing in the doorway, and then getting in a left-hand-drive Renault parked a couple of feet outside.
That last shot was set up while I was still inside, trapping me there until I slipped out between takes.
I have no idea what TV show this is for, and since I rarely watch Japanese TV, I probably won't ever find out.
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| Tuesday, 26-Aug-2003 00:00 |
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Edo-Tokyo Architectural Museum, Part 3 - Soy Sauce Shop & Sento
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The soy sauce shop is where, a couple of years ago during a visit with a friend from California, the following conversation with a little old lady docent took place:
Docent: This is a shop that used to sell soy sauce. Do you have soy sauce in California?
Us: Yes, we do.
Docent: Also, they use to sell other things, such as whale meat. Do they have whale meat in California?
Us: Umm, no.
One of the centerpieces of the Museum is an old-fashioned neighborhood public bathhouse, known as a sento.
As for the bathhouse, The Museum, in its posters, tries to draw parallels between it and the sumptious bathhouse depicted in "Spirited Away", though of course they look nothing alike. Just an appeal to nostalgia, I assume.
Bathhouses are still around, of course: there are two in the immediate vicinity of my home in suburban western Tokyo.
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| Monday, 25-Aug-2003 00:00 |
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Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum, Part 2 - Lower City
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"Shitamachi" (which literally means "lower city") is what they call the working class neighborhoods of old Tokyo, where the working people, shops, and workshops are. A section of the museum is devoted to preserving some these old buildings.
Coming tomorrow: the bathhouse and the izakaya.
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| Sunday, 24-Aug-2003 00:00 |
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Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum, Part 1 - Nice Houses
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Museum signpost (it's a bit of a hike to reach inside the park)
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A surreptitious shot of the "Spirited Away" exhibition
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The 1925 Western-style residence of Kunio Mayekawa
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On Saturday, I made my first big photo expedition, to the Edo-Tokyo Open-Air Architectural Museum in the suburbs of western Tokyo. It's a building museum, with a couple of dozen buildings located in a park in Musashi-Kogenai.
At the moment, they have an exhibition of art from the Hayao Miyazaki movie "Spirited Away," with original background paintings, character sketches, conceptual art, and workbooks. No photographs allowed, of course.
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| Thursday, 21-Aug-2003 00:00 |
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Old (well, older) photos of Japanese traditional crafts
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The crowds windowshop at the Japan Traditonal Crafts Fair
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Pottery at the Japan Traditonal Crafts Fair
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The washi (handmade paper) booth
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Some photos I took back in March--using an old Kodak digital camera I borrowed from a friend--of the Japan Traditonal Crafts Fair, held at the Tokyo Dome City Exhibition Hall.
Essentially a showcase--and market--for regional handicrafts, some ancient, some more modern. Unfortunately, I didn't take notes, so I don't have much information about what you're seeing here.
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You got some good shots Cal - I NEED 7X optical zoom! Oh yeah, and macros!
