k.blueice... (aka brian)

Our street is covered in snow

2012-01-24T01:11:00.001+09:00

Our street is covered in snow
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Nice and snowy on our street tonight.

Haven't seen this much snow on the ground in central Tokyo for quite a long time.

Taxi on a snowy night in Tokyo

2012-01-24T00:52:00.001+09:00

Taxi on a snowy night in Tokyo
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

It's quite snowy in Tokyo tonight, it's been quite a while since I've seen this much snow actually sitting on the ground here in the city... it hasn't slowed down the taxis though! Also pretty glad for the weather sealing that Nikon does on their cameras.

Snow Day in Tokyo

2012-01-22T01:03:00.001+09:00

Snow Day in Tokyo
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

It snowed quite heavily for a while on Friday, but not cold enough to settle. Still, made for a nice change to the view out the window.

Lunar Eclipse

2011-12-11T02:07:00.001+09:00

Lunar Eclipse, a set on Flickr.

Some photos from the Lunar Eclipse tonight. It would have been nice to have a longer lens... and some darker sky. But all around pretty happy considering they are taken with only a 200mm lens and from the middle of Tokyo.

Roppongi and Mt Fuji Sunset

2011-11-24T23:40:00.001+09:00

Roppongi Sunset, a set on Flickr.

One of those pretty rare crystal clear days in Tokyo... Looking over Roppongi, the big buildings on the left are Roppongi Hills, more of Tokyo stretching off into the distance and Mt Fuji in the background.

ShichiGoSan

2011-11-14T00:40:00.001+09:00

ShichiGoSan, a set on Flickr.

Some photos from ShichiGoSan for Mia on Saturday.

Update...

2011-04-14T00:17:00.002+09:00

One of my friends from work just posted an update to his blog about the goings on in Japan over the last month, I've been meaning to do the same, but seeing as he has covered it so eloquently I'm instead going to suggest you go read it.

As far as I'm concerned, he describes the situation very well - thanks Thomo!

Sakura Season

2011-04-10T23:02:00.001+09:00

Sakura Season
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

It's Cherry Blossom time again. Spent a nice afternoon walking around town and checking out the Sakura in some of the parks near our house. Peak season was probably a few days ago now, but it's still very nice.

Weekend away.

2011-02-14T00:16:00.001+09:00

Private Onsen
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Having a private onsen in your room is nice.
We just spent the weekend in a really nice ryokan in Kinugawa Onsen (well Kinugawa Koen actually), the view from our room out over the river was beautiful, will have to go back there in the spring when the river is full.

Enoshima Sunset

2010-11-21T00:27:00.001+09:00

Enoshima Sunset
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Another nice sunset photo from Enoshima today.

Sunset Fishing - Enoshima

2010-11-21T00:26:00.001+09:00

Sunset Fishing - Enoshima
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Spent the afternoon wandering around Enoshima...

Tokyo Mid Town Christmas

2009-12-01T00:25:00.001+09:00

Borrowed a friends fisheye zoom lens and went for a quick walk around Tokyo Mid Town after work. Got to say, this is a fun lens.

There is a couple of more photos, on Flickr.

The mega crane is back.

2009-11-30T23:18:00.001+09:00

The huge crane barge thing is back, this time building another smaller bridge just on the other end of the island to where it was building the big bridge last year.

Still amazes me how this thing can lift up something as heavy as half a bridge.

Monja Street - Tsukishima

2009-11-09T00:56:00.001+09:00

There’s a little Yakitori shop on Monja street that we buy from sometimes to take home and eat, I’ve always meant to get a photo of it and today I had my camera with me.

Really tasty.

And while I’m posting photos, here’s another one of Monja Street itself:

And another which is looking down one of the side alleys:

Autumn Sunshine

2009-11-09T00:49:00.001+09:00

The last few weeks the weather has been fantastic. Autumn is here, the temperature has been around 20 degrees and generally sunny. We’ve been walking around our local area on the weekends quite a bit and really enjoying it.

Some autumn leaves:

And a view of Tokyo Bay:

There’s a couple more photos on Flickr here and here.

Afternoon stroll with a Tortoise.

2009-11-08T23:50:00.001+09:00

We we’re walking home from Tsukishima this afternoon when we ran into an old man walking a tortoise.

The tortoise was quite happily following him along.

Apparently the tortoise is a Pyramided Sulcata, whose name is Bon-chan, he’s 15 years old and weighs 50kg. His owner is Hisao Mitami who runs a local funeral home. The tortoise is a bit of a local celebrity.

Taking some test photos… found an outbreak of Godzilla Plague

2009-09-13T00:37:00.001+09:00

On Friday afternoon went out and took some test photos with a colleague who has the same camera, he’s been having some trouble with sharpness so we thought we would do some comparison shots. Anyway, one of the things we took some test photos of was this telegraph pole. It’s pretty amazing how many cables there are, and this is pretty normal for streets in Japan.

Here’s another one, just a bit further down the same road. This is looking towards Roppongi Mid Town from just near Izumi Garden Tower. I actually ended up quite liking this photo, the afternoon sun on the cables and the huge red billboard in that background with Godzilla advertising Kirin Fire – canned coffee.

I didn’t really think any more about the billboard, advertising is everywhere here, but then today, we were at Roppongi Hills with some visiting relatives and we went up to the City View on the 52nd floor. It was a really foggy day so not to good for taking photos of the view, I was just going to throw this photo away, but something red caught my eye…

It’s a plauge of the huge red and black Godzilla billboards.

Maruetsu

2009-09-10T23:57:00.001+09:00

We have a supermarket in our building, which is really rather convenient. You just get out of the elevator, walk through the two security doors, turn right and your there already, the entrance you come out of is just to the right of picture below. And what’s even better is that its still very much undercover so there’s no way you could possibly end up getting wet, even if its pouring rain.

Maruetsu is a large chain style supermarket that is very reasonably priced. Certainly way cheaper than the supermarket at our old apartment – Daimaru Peacock – which was really a “boutique” style venture…

Anyway, I had my camera with me the other day when we went in to buy some things, so I thought I’d take a few photos of some of the “standard fare” on the shelves.

First up, the meat section, portions are far smaller than Australia, and considerably more expensive.

Next, the “marine” section. Octopus!

Some fish, and squid… and in case those squid weren’t fresh enough, there’s some still wriggling around on ice.

Around the other side of the supermarket is the “bento” section, all sorts of ready to eat snacks and meals such as sushi, noodles like udon and soba, fried foods, and heaps of other stuff. And a whole section on fresh baked breads at the end.

A bit further down the aisle and you come to the packaged bread / snack / cake section. And check out the funky electronic price tags, every shelf has them – in fact most places use them, they are “normal”.

Then somewhere back in the middle of the supermarket is the biscuits and normal snack foods section, full of tasty treats like this!

It’s always fun to wander around in the supermarket.

Tokyo Bay Hanabi

2009-08-09T18:51:00.001+09:00

It’s that time of year again…

2009 Tokyo Bay Hanabi from k.blueice on Vimeo.

I’ll upload some photos later, but thought I would put some video up first. This is the first time I’ve really tried using the video feature on the D90, pretty happy with how it went in the end.

Looking north...

2009-08-04T23:09:00.001+09:00

Night View Looking North
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Well, north-ish.
The close building is Sea Tower - the other half of our complex (The Tokyo Towers) and the big buildings in the middle are Harumi Triton Square. You can also see Toyosu's Lala Port shopping mall just to the right of them at the end of the bay.
Again, taken from the balcony off our bedroom.

Looking south...

2009-08-04T23:06:00.001+09:00

Night View Looking South
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Well, south-ish anyway. This is looking across Tokyo Bay towards Odaiba. Rainbow Bridge is on the right and Haneda Airport is in the background. The foreground is Harumi Pier, or Wharf, I can never remember which.
Taken from the balcony off our bedroom.

Fireworks Over Triton Square

2009-08-04T23:02:00.001+09:00

Fireworks Over Triton Square
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Came home from work tonight, and there's fireworks out the window. This time of year is pretty neat, it's still not too hot and there is lots of fireworks, the big ones for us are this weekend, right in front of our balcony!
In the foreground is Harumi Triton Square, a big office complex with shops underneath, has some pretty decent restaurants, and some really cool gardens.

Where am I sitting right now?

2009-06-07T00:09:00.001+09:00

Workspace
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Pretty happy with our new apartment.

Long time without posting…

2009-04-19T22:30:00.001+09:00

It’s been way too long since I last wrote something.

But, in my defense, we’ve been pretty busy. Highlights?

Yoko’s cousin’s wedding in Niigata.
Work, lots of work.
Yoko’s brothers wedding.
More work.
Moved house.

And Mia has teeth now! She is very chompy.

Two weddings in the space of about 5 weeks, both out of town, so we were away for the weekend. Both great though, took heaps of photos, really happy with how they turned out. Will think about posting one or two on Flickr. Weddings in Japan are quite the event, very impressive.

Also, I finally got around to getting a new camera… I’m back with the Nikon brand again! One shiny new Nikon D90. Am most pleased with it. Have been really enjoying Black and White again…

And we’ve moved.

We’re now living in Kachidoki, only been here about a week, but loving it so far. It takes a bit longer to get to work, but it’s a much bigger apartment, in a really great part of Tokyo.

It’s on the 57th floor – second from the top in this photo.

The view is great, maybe even better than the view from our old place in Shibaura.

We went for our first good walk around the district today, had lunch in Triton Square, then walked around the parks there, then walked up to Tsukishima and explored some of the backstreets near “Monja Street”. Very cool, great way to spend a Sunday. Posted a couple of photos from the day on Flickr.

Anyway, will try and post a little more frequently.

Hello!

2009-02-22T13:14:00.000+09:00

Long Weekend in Shiga Kogen

2009-01-11T19:54:00.000+09:00

It was dumping down on Friday and Saturday then perfect sunny, no wind
and -15'c on Sunday.
The cars in this photo arrived on Friday night, so almost 50cm of
fresh snow since then.

On my desk...

2008-12-22T00:12:00.003+09:00

On my desk...
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

I noticed how reflective the iPhone really is the other day when I put it down on my desk... so I thought I'd take a photo of it. I really don't like taking still life photos that much, so I don't really do it that often. Usually I don't really like how they turn out, but am reasonably happy with this one. It also reminded quite a lot of one of my friend's photos which I really liked.

So how is the iPhone? I've had it for quite a while... its damn good. In fact, to not clutter the internet with more of the same, Thomo has already summed it up pretty damn well.

What else is going on? Not much, hanging out at home for a while (I'm on holiday!), playing with Mia, catching up on some sleep, trying to avoid reading Bloomberg, and going snowboarding this week, so it better start snowing tomorrow, because it's a bit lacking at the moment. The forcast is for a white Christmas which will be fun :)

Busy...

2008-11-03T23:05:00.001+09:00

Has been rather busy of late... why?

1 - Mia !

http://yogobear.blogspot.com/2008/09/this-is-mia.html

http://yogobear.blogspot.com/2008/09/mia-day-5.html

http://yogobear.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-more-photos-of-mia.html

So cool ;)

2 - Work

There was this little bit of a problem... Caused all sorts of fun and games. Maybe "meltdown" would be a better description? Oh well, bad for some (Lehman's... ouch), but not too bad for us. Have heard rumors that lots of those $20k per month apartments in Roppongi Hills are sitting vacant now that all the Lehman's crowd can't afford them, and apparently can be rented really cheap... may have to investigate that.

Besides those two? That's enough to keep you busy, but...

Have managed to take a couple of photos. I had to go into work late one night and decided to walk. It only takes about 35 minutes, and have been wanting to take some night photos for a while. I've uploaded a few of them to flickr, start here and work backwards... all taken hand held.

And I am still uploading photos reasonably regularly from my phone to here.

What else is going on? It's getting colder... there is snow starting to fall in the mountains! Mt. Fuji has some already - can see it from work on a clear day. We're already planning and booking snowboarding trips. Looks like this year will be Christmas in the snow! Cool.

Oh! you can buy fireworks in Japan...

2008-08-17T21:36:00.001+09:00

At Toys'R'us. And they are cheap. This monster bag is only $50. If only I had somewhere to let them off...

I think I might have to "find" somewhere to let them off...

Tokyo Bay Hanabi 2008

2008-08-17T21:29:00.001+09:00

Last Sunday night was Tokyo Bay Hanabi. We had some friends over, we managed to get a dozen people into our apartment. Amazingly it wasn't to crowded. And we had pies.

Anyway this year I thought I would try something different for taking photos of the fireworks. Last year I was shooting with a wide angle lens and got some great pics of the whole scene. So this year I thought I would try shooting for some close up shots with my old 210mm zoom lens, things turned out pretty well...

I was pretty amazed at how well the old 210mm zoom worked out, it is around 15 years old after all. It doesn't have auto focus, but the *istDs could actually "talk" to it so I could control the aperture using the body, this amount of backwards compatibility really did amaze me.

Above is just a mosaic, but you can see the all the individual photos on flickr.

Welcome to the Dark Side...

2008-08-17T21:01:00.001+09:00

I brought an iPhone. Damned Apple.

Anyway, I opened another flickr account to upload phone pics. I must admit it's very convenient to upload photos from the iPhone.

And in general it is a very damned cool toy, its just a shame you have to use iTunes, if only it had a decent piece of software on the computer side it would be so much better.

Now, time to post something else so this isn't the top post on my blog...

Stormy Weather...

2008-07-13T22:44:00.001+09:00

On the NEX on Saturday afternoon, coming back from Narita we went through a really crazy little storm somewhere near Chiba. It was bright and sunny one moment... Then crazy amounts of thunder, you could hear it in the train, and lightning and rain... Then back to sunny again... All in the space of about twenty minutes.

Before...

During...

After...

Was quite an interesting train ride really, and I'm well impressed by how well these pictures came out, especially considering they are taken out the window of a moving train, using my mobile phone.

As a side note, it never ceases to amaze me how green and pretty Japan can be, this is just a random rice field out the window of the train, about 10 minutes from Narita airport.

Afternoon Tea With a View

2008-07-13T18:53:00.001+09:00

This one is also from a couple of weeks ago. We went to Tokyo Dome, and ended up having afternoon tea in a bar / cafe thing on the top floor of the hotel there. Was a pretty impressive view, and some pretty tasty food.

Tokyo Dome is the big building on the left, the amusement park is part of the greater Tokyo Dome attractions, this shot is looking vaguely north towards the outlying parts of Tokyo, not that you can tell, a Tokyo seems to go on forever!

Somethings from Kawaguchiko

2008-07-13T18:13:00.001+09:00

We went to Kawaguchiko a couple of weeks ago while a friend was visiting, was pretty cloudy the whole time, so only saw a few glimpses of Mt Fuji, but was still a good weekend away. And we saw a really stretched vehicle... and a lady on a fish... click to see full size.

A Mango, A Bridge and a Crane.

2008-06-01T19:43:00.001+09:00

Like the title says...

A mango, an expensive mango. A $157 mango.

And on a completely different subject, a damn big crane. Have been wondering all week about what the thing was parked over the other side of the bay, it looked like a large piece of roadway on a barge. Turns out that's exactly what it is. It is part of a new bridge, and this huge crane is going to lift it into place. To give some scale, the little boat in the foreground is actually a ferry, not a small ferry either, if you look closely you can see quite a lot of people standing on it's roof.

Some random photos from the weekend...

2008-05-27T22:55:00.001+09:00

Lately, at the end of a nice clear spring day, the view from our apartment has been pretty nice. The sun gets reflected back off the buildings on the other side of the bay. Finally managed to grab a photo, it isn't the best, had to push the ISO to 3200, so its pretty grainy...

This is 4 shots glued together, the end result isn't to bad.

And on a completely different subject...

For the last few weeks there has been fire boats in the bay doing strange, choreographed, well, something. Including using the funky water cannons. Interesting.

Anyway's, on Saturday it became obvious why. They were rehearsing for some demonstration of fire boat goodness.

Including shooting fluorescent colored water from their water cannons. Didn't quite grab the camera quickly enough, but managed to catch the tail end of the spray.

Mmm, technicolor...

How do you take your coffee?

2008-05-27T22:27:00.001+09:00

With "Creap"... obviously.

Yep, "creamy powder" goodness. And it's even on sale...

Send me enough money, and I'll be happy to send you some "Creap" to call your very own. A great way to win friends and influence people I'm sure, especially when combined with some cheap ass, freeze dried, instant, decaf.

Heh.

Golden Week

2008-05-10T20:39:00.001+09:00

Golden week just finished (sort of, this post is a little late). This year two of the public holidays fell on a weekend, but we still had a four day weekend to enjoy. And enjoy we did, we went to Niigata, which is shortly to host the G8 Summit, preparations were well underway while we were there. Will post some more later.

You know things are not going well...

2008-04-23T23:17:00.001+09:00

... when you have to fire up a packet sniffer.

Yep, long, tedious day.

But Ethereal, or WireShark as it is now known, has come quite a way since I last had to use it. At least that made the day somewhat less unpleasant.

Sunday afternoon at Zojoji temple

2008-04-06T22:19:00.002+09:00

We went for a stroll around Zojoji temple this afternoon. It is only one train station away - but you could walk there if you wanted. Was a bit of a random encounter, because we were on our way back from a Hanami festival, and had to change trains at Daimon to get home. It was lunch time, so we decided that we may as well go get some food and explore around Daimon a little bit... we ended up following the crowd to Zojoji.

Anyway, lots of people, lots of Sakura, and lots of Jizo... very colorful and bright, but quite sad when you find out what they represent.

And on a completely different note, well somewhat related as it is also has cherry blossoms, we saw this last weekend. There really is a lot of rivers / canals / water in Tokyo... almost everywhere you go your only a short walk away from a river or canal. Pretty cool, especially at this time of year, because quite a lot look like this.

Its Cherry Blossom Time!

2008-03-30T22:05:00.003+09:00

Air Tower Sakura - HDR
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

The cherry blossoms are out... they are everywhere, and very cool. More pictures on my flickr photo stream, go have a look.

Thought I would have another play with qtpfsgui, yeah, gotta love software with abstract names... sort of fitting probably though in this case. Anyway, this pic is HDR, and I like it. Would probably have helped if I:

1) Used a tripod

2) Didn't take photos while its windy... the branches moved a lot.

It makes it really hard to get good alignment when you stack the images. Oh well. Still turned out ok.

Nozawa Onsen

2008-03-22T20:10:00.001+09:00

A couple of us from work went for a last minute weekend trip to Nozawa Onsen. A lot of people had recommended this resort, so definitely keen to try it out. After deciding on Friday afternoon that I would go, was a bit hectic getting home to pick up boards then get back to work to get picked up for the four hour drive up to Nagano. We stayed in a really budget lodge run by an Aussie (vegemite toast for breakfast!), so the accommodation wasn't flash, but it was cheap and close to the slopes.

Now this was a fun resort. We spent most of the weekend dropping off the right hand side of the mountain down through a selection of incredibly steep gullies and ridges. At the start of the weekend it was almost untracked, but by the end... well we chopped up a fairly vast amount of terrain. In the end we had to give up on it because the temperature warmed up and it was getting just a bit to sketchy... 50+ degree lines that were coming with you rather a lot... and there was some fairly large cookies rolling down as well. We certainly wiped all the gullies clear of tracks by the amount of snow that was slipping down them. Heh steep... Fun.

So after spending a day and a half in the resort and not going on one single "marked" trail, we decided to try out a run called skyline to finish off the afternoon. Wow, this is probably the best groomed run I have ever ridden. It is a relatively narrow trail that goes straight down a ridge line with steep drops off both sides. Really impressive views all the way, and not crowded at all, so you can really speed down all 3km+ of it. Impressive.

After staying till closing time (several laps of Skyline!) on the Sunday we had a quick onsen then headed back to Tokyo. Even caught a glimpse of Shiga in the distance on the way home. Definitely going to go there next season, and definitely going back to Nozawa Onsen as well.

We got a taste of the famous weekend freeway traffic on the way home, but a quick stop for some ramen and we missed the worst of it and ended up back in Tokyo by about 10pm.

Twitter...

2008-03-22T00:20:00.001+09:00

Twitter... have been thinking about having a play with it for a while, so finally signed up and added an RSS feed from my account to the sidebar on this blog. See what happens.

Snow and Shopping?

2008-02-28T14:34:00.000+09:00

Yes, in Japan you can combine snowboarding and shopping together into one weekend. In fact you can do the both of them together in the same resort. Karuizawa.

We stayed in a cabin at the Prince Hotel. Very cool, a cabin in the snow, complete with big icicles hanging off the roof.

From the front door it was about two minutes walk to get to the ski lifts in one direction, and about two minutes walk in the other direction to get to the huge outdoor outlet mall thing. The slopes definitely aren't the best in Japan, but they are certainly good enough for a weekend of fun, and the views from the top of the mountain are pretty nice. And there is some pretty cool rocky mountains off behind the resort.

The actual ski slopes are pretty small, and so they get pretty crowded, probably the most crowded slopes I've seen here in Japan. And the whole resort is very beginner friendly, so a lot of time is spent dodging out of control beginners. And no powder, but still it was fun to just cruise around, and when you've had enough, you can go to the mall!

All in all a fun weekend.

Snowboarding in Naeba

2008-02-03T19:16:00.001+09:00

On the work ski trip...

A friend and I snuck under the ropes and got some sneaky turns in under Gondola 1 at Naeba. Really easy access, no hiking! And the traverse out along a creek wasn't to bad... and unlike Australia, the creek was actually covered, so you could ride over it without to much concern. In fact we took a run down one of the gullies and it was much fun, well fun for me, apparently not so much fun for the person following me because I wiped all the snow off of a waterfall as I was going over it, so getting down after me was a bit of an issue. Heh.

Anyway, haven't ridden in the trees for quite a while, so was nice to get back into it again, and the snow was sensational, almost waist deep in some places and really fluffy. Yay, Pow!

Really was amazing to get such great snow (with steep bits!), with pretty much no other tracks apart from our own, and did I mention no hiking? Just get off the Gondola, duck the rope, enjoy the pow, short traverse along a creek, and duck another rope back onto a groomed run. Easy. Fun.

Got to say though, it's quite a bit steeper than it looks in these clips, and was pretty hard work, especially as I was riding a 146 with the stance set tip and tail with the back foot at -15. But for such a short board, it really handled it nicely. Just need to square up the angle on the back foot before next time, then it will be even better.

Still snowing...

2008-02-03T16:59:00.001+09:00

Its still snowing.

This is the front of our apartment building, the grass is all completely covered and there is snow piling up against the little walls. There is a couple of inches of slush on the roads as well. The news is saying that some trains and highways are closed, and even the Shinkansen's are running late (that never happens!).

Might be interesting walking to work tomorrow morning if it freezes tonight...

It's snowing in Tokyo!

2008-02-03T13:57:00.001+09:00

It's been snowing here in Tokyo all day. Very cool! Have to go out later, could be interesting...

Has been a while since I posted, but have some more to post later today...

Snowboarding in Iwa-ppara

2008-01-01T22:43:00.001+09:00

So, like I said in the previous post, after getting back from our Christmas long weekend in Naeba, we booked ourselves in for the new year's long weekend in Iwa-ppara. I've got to say, this place is convenient. Under two hours from walking out our front door in Tokyo, to being on the mountain. This resort isn't as high up as Naeba, so the snow wasn't as good, but it snowed all weekend, so everything was just fine. This place is perfect for beginners, it has amazingly wide open runs that are nice and long, from where this picture was taken (again with the poor quality phone photos!) it is over a kilometer straight line to the bottom. Nice. The place we stayed in wasn't anywhere near as fancy as the Naeba Prince Hotel, but it was good enough, and it had a nice outdoor onsen bath. And its right in the middle of the ski run, so you can ski right to the front door. You did have to take your boots off to go to your room though, but still, can't complain.

Also took my camera with me, so here is some more photos:

It snowed while we were there, about 50cm over the three days...

And then just on dusk on the Sunday night, there was a brief break in the clouds...

Finally got to use my new ND filter that I got before we went to Thailand, pretty happy with the results actually! The lift in this picture is a gondola, but unfortunately its closed this season. I think that the resort will be much better next year when they have it open again, without it, half the bottom section of the resort is unusable. Still plenty of room to ride elsewhere, but it would be much nicer if this section was available. Anyway, was still a good weekend, despite that and the weather, we will be going back!

It's snowing... time to go snowboarding!

2008-01-01T21:24:00.000+09:00

Should have posted this a week ago... didn't get around to it.

Our hotel room.

Night skiing.

It's winter. It's Christmas, so there's plenty of long weekends and days off work. So we've been snowboarding. First up, Naeba. Home to the "Dragondola". Living in Tokyo has its advantages, it's under two hours to get from home to Echigo Yuzawa, which is surrounded by numerous ski fields, then about 30 minutes by road to get to Naeba from there. I've got to say, Naeba has ruined my whole snowboarding experience. How? Ha, look here or in the pic of night skiing on the left. See that twenty something storey high tower? Well we stayed in that. Oh, and is that a gondola and a quad lift right outside the door? Yes, yes it is. I like being able to put my boots on in my room, and at lunch time, not have to fight for a table, just get takeaway and eat in your room. Nice. From now on, all snowboarding accommodation must be located less than 20 steps from room to lift.

The quality of the pic's isn't too good, but its not too bad for a mobile phone. One is obviously our room, nice and big, great view of the mountain, and even better view of the fireworks each night... did I forget to mention there is fireworks? Well there is, and they were pretty damn good. The other pic is taken from the top of the quad lift which leaves fight from the door of the hotel. "Nighta" (Night skiing) until 10pm every night.
Oh, it snowed too, mmm powder, deep windblown pockets in the out of the way sections of the black runs. Very nice.

On the way back to Echigo Yuzawa from Naeba, I spotted another resort right near the train station, looked like it had really nice long, wide, open beginner slopes, just what Yoko needs to practice linking turns. So two hours later, back at home, a quick Google finds that the resort we were looking at is called Iwa-ppara. Another few minutes and we've found a hotel right in the middle of one of the runs. A quick phone call, and we're sorted for the long weekend leading into new years.

Rainbow Bridge - with rainbow colors

2008-01-01T21:11:00.001+09:00

Rainbow Bridge - with rainbow colors
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Rainbow Bridge has a new colour scheme... its now all "rainbowy". I've got to say, the view from our apartment was pretty colourful already, but now its getting rather psychadelic!

High Dynamic Range Imaging

2007-12-03T17:56:00.001+09:00

view-1
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

HDR is interesting. I've been playing a little with it over the last few days. Lots of possibilities, some of the abstract stuff you can do is cool. Ive got a few more pics here.

For more info about HDR start looking here.

I've also been out taking some more photos recently, wanted to get some Autumn pics before all the leaves fall down... got lucky and actually got some pics of the leaves falling. Some are posted on flickr in my photostream.

Hanabi - Fireworks

2007-12-01T20:23:00.001+09:00

Hanabi at Daiba
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

I love the fact we can watch fireworks from our balcony every night... sure they are far away normally at Dinsey Land, but every Saturday at the moment there is some that are much closer... right at Rainbow Bridge in front of Daiba. While it's not as huge as the display earlier in the year, its still cool.

tasty...

2007-11-10T15:28:00.001+09:00

i certainly did savour that elaborated chocolate taste ;)

<edit>: w00t, I can post from my mobile phone! heh. just need to sort out that strange image rotation...

Thailand - Part Two

2007-11-04T22:17:00.001+09:00

Maya Bay
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Not so many words this time. Just a couple of pictures from Maya Bay. This place is really crowded with tourists, so it was hard to get any pics that didn't have crowds of people in them. I would love to go there and explore around when its not so crowded.

Oh, and Yoko mentions some of the stuff I skipped over, check out her blog post about the trip, here. It even has a photo I haven't put on flickr.

Thailand - Part One

2007-11-04T21:27:00.000+09:00

So, like I said in my last post, we went for a quick holiday to Thailand. We stayed in Phuket, right on Patong beach... here in fact. Got to say, Thailand is pretty cool. Phuket is a bit too crowded with Aussies and "Eurotrash" (not being mean about it, but that's just the description that comes first to mind) though. So many Westerners, was unbelievable, you could almost imagine you were in an Australian beach resort! Probably seemed more so because we live in Japan.

It was nice, and we had a great time, but I think it might have been nicer ten years ago. There is too much development there at the moment, so you end up with these really strange contrasts, like a huge, brand new, shopping mall right next door to outdoor markets which get flooded to ankle depth in water when it rains! Another example was on the eastern side of the island, there is a big marina development which is probably nicer than most in Australia, and not more than 30 seconds away by boat along the channel to get to the open water there is what can only be described as a shanty town, which really becomes obvious at low tide.

It was a bit wet while we were there, but it didn't really stop you from getting out and doing things. It would be overcast and warm and really humid all day, with a really heavy tropical rainstorm at around lunch time, then another one during the evening. It was actually good, because it kept it from being too hot. And hey, its fun wandering around the markets when its rainy, it keeps most of the rest of the tourists in their hotels, and wandering around in ankle deep water inside a market is pretty funny.

Fake stuff is everywhere... in the markets its incredibly cheap, and in the upmarket mall it costs more, but what your getting might actually be the real thing. Oh and you might seriously consider buying the "No, I don't want a f*cking suit, massage, or tuk-tuk" shirt after a while... my advice, just smile and have a laugh with the mobs of vendors trying to sell you whatever it is you really don't need. I think they do it for a laugh themselves most of the time, just to see how hard some of the tourists bite. Haha, its funny to watch.

Oh, and Thai airways... got to say, the food was pretty decent, in fact pretty damn tasty, but the planes are old and crappy. You don't get a personal entertainment unit thing, you just have to watch the one tv screen at the front of the cabin. And on the way back the air conditioning was set to like 30 degrees Celsius, it was really hot and stuffy, I don't ever get air sick, luckily, but this was starting to make me feel a bit dodgy, glad it was only 90 minutes from Phuket to Bangkok. Very unpleasant, in fact one of the worst plane trips I can remember... oh and then, on the flight from Bangkok to Narita (Tokyo) no movie! lucky I had a book with me. I don't think we will be flying with them again if we can possibly avoid it.

There is a few more pics on flickr.

Lazy...

2007-11-04T20:54:00.000+09:00

Ok, I've been lazy. No posts in a while. Why? (excuses time...) Its been busy at work, those databases in my last post have been a pain. Apart from that? Ive been in Thailand as well for a holiday ;)

Anyway, some stuff I should have posted a while ago:

First off, we went and visited the National Science Museum. Really cool, heaps of interesting stuff, and really cheap (not like museums in .au), is good to see this stuff being made available to all for next to nothing. They've got all sorts of stuff, from dinosaurs, through to some of the earliest computers, and even a section on space flight. Oh and they have a real missile launcher in their back yard! And the roof terrace with umbrellas that sense you coming and automagically open is worth seeing.

Next Up, Tokyo Tower.

We had a visitor come to stay with us, so we got to do the tourist thing (hah, as if we still aren't tourists ourselves!). So we took her all around the place, including Tokyo Tower. I hadn't been there before either, so it was pretty interesting.

They have a section with a glass floor! Cool. The other pic is looking towards the west... the big building on the right is Izumi Garden Tower, which happens to be where I'm working, my window looks back towards Tokyo Tower. The big building on the left is Roppongi Hills, and in the center is Tokyo Midtown, and behind that, in the distance is Shijuku.

The pictures are taken from my phone, so they aren't the best... didn't really feel like dragging my camera around with me though.

So I have these two little databases...

2007-09-25T23:00:00.000+09:00

... in these databases are some tables, database A contains table A..a and database B contains table B..b, the schemas for A..a and B..b are identical. The data stored in them is sequential, that is, table A..a contains the first half of the data and table B..b contains the second half of the data. Sound familiar? Probably does, this is a fairly common archive arrangement, you put all that data from each month / year / decade / whatever into a new db to keep the size manageable... yeah yeah, not ideal, but hey, these things are everywhere.

So now I want to run queries across the full depth of A..a and B..b in one go - don't ask why, I just want to ok? (hint: no clean logical way to decided which db will contain the data you want) Create a view you say, a union all kind of arrangement? Take advantage of the fact that both tables are nicely indexed? Nice idea, but no. Might work on small tables with a few gb in each one... but what if they have a few hundred gb? You better have a monstrous tempdb even to do something simple like:
set rowcount 100;
select * from AB_view;

So, what do you do? Surely there has to be some better way than freeing up a mega amount of space and bcp'ing the data out of one table, putting it into the other one, then re-indexing, that will take a considerable amount of time. I want to be able to just grab hold of the table objects in the db and tell them to join together "vertically". I'm sure there's many reasons why doing that isn't practical, but I don't care... at all.

Databases suck sometimes... And don't even bother asking me about DBArtisan... Surely there must be a good DB query tool out there somewhere that is light weight and, well, works? Someone could make a crap load of money if they built one...

Its hard to do anything without a monitor.

2007-09-23T21:26:00.000+09:00

A few weeks ago my funky 256mb graphics card stopped working. Not pleased. Luckily I still had an old 128mb one lying around, so a quick swap and computer was back to life... several weeks pass by... and few days ago my trusty 17 inch LCD monitor stopped working too. Bugger, I don't have a spare monitor lying around. Luckily the computer in the lounge room is hooked up the the huge wide screen TV... hmm wide screen...

So, feeling in need of new toys anyway (especially after phone call to a certain sneakygeek, yes, you know you are to blame), its off to Akihabara. And a short time later after browsing though a couple of department store sized computer shops I now have a nice new 22 inch wide screen monitor. Oh and a funky new 512mb graphics card to add to the fun.

Oblivion looks good at 1680x1050. Next up? I think its time to replace the ten year old IBM, home brew improved, LED encrusted keyboard...

It's Asimo!

2007-09-16T20:10:00.000+09:00

I saw Asimo today!

It (he? she?) lives in Miraikan which is the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo (Odaiba to be exact). He came out for a ten minute demonstration. I don't know why, but I expected him to be bigger, and to be sort of "clompy" when he walks. But he's actually silent when he's walking. After walking around a little bit and doing some funky arm waving and such, he decided to go for a little jog... well more like a full on sprint. Now that was amazing. While he's running both his feet actually leave the ground at the same time, just like a real person. Considering he's now 7 years old, its pretty damn impressive.

The rest of Miraikan is also really cool. It is just like the Power House Museum in Sydney, not as big but it is much more interactive, and a whole heap cheaper (only $5 for an adult). Apart from robots they also have a lot of other interesting science stuff ranging from info about KEK and other particle accelerators, through to biology, chemistry, deep sea exploration and general technology. And the huge globe made out of LCD panels with a rotating image of the earth is awesome. All in all a very cool place. We will be going back.

Typhoony... is that a word?

2007-09-06T22:01:00.000+09:00

It should be a word if it isn't, because that's what it is outside.

That big swirly thing, i.e. Typhoon Fitow is going over the top of us right now.

Getting home was interesting... a rather exciting taxi ride. People walking down the street we fairing much worse though, some were getting dragged away by their umbrellas, and some people are almost wrapped up in their umbrellas as the wind folds them around them.

Schools and such all closed at midday today, and are closed again tomorrow... unfortunately I don't get a day off work, I have heard that we would have a great view of the "flying futons" from our house. Oh well, maybe it will still be windy on Saturday.

Oh and we cant open the doors to our balcony, the wind is pushing them so hard. Lucky the glass is like an inch thick.

Weekend in Nikko.

2007-08-20T22:39:00.001+09:00

Waterfall in Nikko
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

We just spent the weekend in Nikko, a really popular mountain area famous for National Parks and temples. We stayed in a nice little Ryokan that had private indoor and outdoor bath, and our room was looking out over a little creek with some waterfalls, just the ticket for a nice relaxing weekend out of Tokyo.

We spent Saturday out and about up in the mountains enjoying the nice cool weather - it was rainy and really foggy so the views weren't as spectacular as if it was clear, but the cool temperature (only 17 degrees!) was damn good after how hot it has been in Tokyo lately (over 30 degrees every day!).

One of the waterfalls Ryuzu-no-taki had a little tea house right in front, being overcast it was great for getting longer exposure photos like this one.

We also went to Kegon falls, this place is cool, there is an elevator which takes you 100m down the cliff so you can see the waterfall from the bottom. Cool.

Heaps of other cool stuff over the weekend as well, including Edo Wonderland, which is like an Edo themed cross between an amusement park and a museum.

All up, a really cool place, will definitely have to go back there some time.

Hanabi ! (Fireworks)

2007-08-11T23:10:00.000+09:00

Hanabi is very popular summer activity in Japan and tonight was Tokyo Bay Hanabi. What a show! And really really loud. In fact so loud you could feel the explosions shaking the glass of our apartment. I've put quite a few photos on flickr, in this photo stream. But had to post two favourites here... I love the shapes in this first one, with the cool little white stars above the red circle one.

And another one.

That is a big firework to blow up at ground level, pretty glad I wasn't on the barge they were setting them off from when that happened!

Day trip to Yokohama

2007-07-29T20:51:00.000+09:00

We went on another day tour, this time to Yokohama. On the way we stopped off at the man made island / parking lot / attraction, called Umi-hotaru, that forms the intersection of the tunnel and bridge sections of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line.
This thing is an engineering marvel. 10km long tunnel, and 4.5km long bridge (I guess they couldn't decide which to build, so they did both).

If you've got google earth check it out ( 35°27'45.93"N, 139°52'36.55"E).
We can actually see it from our house, on a clear day, and there is a ventilation shaft / tower half way along the tunnel section. This vent thing is actually another man made island that is very strange looking, from our balcony it looks like a huge disk shaped thing out in the middle of the bay. You can see it in a photo here.

We also went to a place called SeaParadise just south of Yokohama. The pic in the previous post was taken there in an area called Dolphin Fantasy. Really cool place, we only had a couple of hours there so we will have to go back again to see it all. And I wouldn't mind seeing the Aqua Stadium show again, dolphins and seals doing cool stuff.

Ive also just posted a couple of new photos on flickr. This one of the moon over Daiba, and this one of the Hanabi (fireworks) in Asakusa on the weekend.

Japanese people in photos

2007-07-29T20:32:00.000+09:00

Seeing Japanese people posing for photos always makes me laugh.
For example:

Why the "V"? Didn't it go out of fashion long long ago (in a galaxy far far away...)?

Pretty (annoying) blue cables

2007-07-29T20:09:00.000+09:00

Ive seen plenty of weird network problems. But this one is just to stupid:

Sometimes my network connection stops working, it shows up as "media disconnected" in windows. Try all sorts of things, eventually give up and reboot, problem still there. Eventually grab another blue cable out of the pile and plug one end into the computer and the other into the wall, and "voila!" everything is working.

So now I just think, OK, dodgy cable, no problem, move along. But wait...
a week or so later, same problem again! Now this time I went and got a brand new, still in the wrapper cable from the cupboard (you know, one that came with some piece of previously purchased hardware), plug it in, and away we go again. Nice, two dodgy cables, bit of bad luck there.

So fast forward another week, and after pulling nonfunctional computer apart (yes, my graphics card toasted itself, lucky there was an old one in aforementioned cupboard), network problem again! WTF!

This time I don't bother getting another cable, just grab one of the previous two, both still hiding conveniently under the desk, and plug it it... it works.

Why do my network cables just stop and start working like this? It does not make much sense...

I need a new "WTF" tag.

Lazy Sunday Shopping...

2007-07-22T20:12:00.000+09:00

So after our funky day tour, today was some lazy Sunday afternoon shopping. A quick monorail ride from home and over the bridge to Daiba and into Venus Fort (there's an English link near the top).
Ive been wanting to try the camera on my phone for a while now, its not too bad, but the quality isn't brilliant... good enough for blogging though ;) And Ive got to say, damn its hard to hold steady.

So after a really nice lunch at the place below, which had some really cool ambiance, we spent the afternoon wandering around in the mall, pictures above. All I can say is, wow, what a cool place. Oh and hey, its full of shops, and its all on sale at the moment. Nice.

So it's the weekend... "Day Tour!"

2007-07-22T19:11:00.000+09:00

So we went on a day tour. Its hot and its summer, so lets go somewhere with a pool. In fact lets go to a place that specialises in water. So we went to Spa Resort Hawaiians.

A day trip, a day trip bus tour, everyone else does them, so why not us? So off we went, on the bus at 8:30 am, a quick pit stop at a huge roadside "facility" (way more fancy than the ones in Australia!) and then at about 11am arrive for our 5 hours of fun in the pools. Check out the link above, it's a pretty cool place. It feels a little run down, and it was pretty crowded, but damn it was still cool.

This poster is in the front window of the entrance hall thing. I'm still not sure what "Doctor Fish" are, or what they do for you, and for 1500 yen I wasn't really that interested in finding out... especially when there were water slides, dozens of pools, hot tubs, onsens etc etc to play in.

So after a long day of swimming, well mostly lounging in the hot tubs, its back on the bus to head back to Tokyo. Another half way pit stop in another huge roadside thing, complete with Kitty vending machine. And then back to Tokyo by about 7pm.

One day tour complete.
Neat.

Photosynth has made progress

2007-07-21T22:11:00.000+09:00

This is something I've been keeping an eye on for quite a long time now... one of the coolest imaging projects going at the moment (in my opinion anyway, but hey, your reading my blog).
So if you feel the need to heat up your graphics card a bit, then...
Main page is:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/
Something worth looking at while your there:
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/bbc/

I cant wait until we can start creating our own scenes.

I obviously need a new camera.

2007-07-17T22:28:00.000+09:00

Q: How do you know you need to upgrade your camera?
A: When a full resolution pic still isn't wide enough to go across the desktop without "stretching".

Damn 3840 x 1024 desktop resolution, I knew there had to be a drawback to having three monitors on my desk.

heh.

Typhoon and Earthquake... all in one 3 day weekend.

2007-07-17T22:13:00.000+09:00

So we got the double whammy for the long weekend just gone. Saturday and Sunday was typhoon warning, it cleaned up Okinawa, but was a non event here in Tokyo, well we got some rain but that was about it. Then at just after 10am on Monday we had an earthquake. It was only about 3 on the Richter scale here in Tokyo, but it was over 6 in Niigata.

It seems that the nuclear power plant over there didn't fare quite as well as one would hope...

Even though it was only small here in Tokyo our building got up quite a rock and roll, up here on the 36th floor we were swaying around for a good minute!

Trains...

2007-07-09T22:23:00.001+09:00

Coming from Sydney, and having been a cityrail commuter in the past (and as a result ended up being the first owner of such distinguished domains as www.f*ckcityrail.com etc) I was really worried about having to commute to work on a train. Even more worried when I found out I have to catch two trains to get to work. Even more worried having heard stories of how crowded the trains are in Tokyo...

What a pleasant surprise! Ok the trains are crowded sometimes, but they come every few minutes! Ive never had to wait more than about 3 minutes for a train. I don't even have to worry about timetables and such, because they just run like clockwork every couple of minutes. Pretty stoked at how quick it is to get to work, I spend more time walking to the station than I do on the trains - first train for one stop, then change platforms, second train for 2 stops, then into the lift (without leaving underground) up one flight of steps, then I'm at my desk. All done in about 30 minutes, 10 to 15 of which is spent strolling through the crowd to get to the station!

Also, Tamachi station, I have to walk through it in the morning to get to my station (Mita). Wow, to say it is incredibly crowded in the mornings is the biggest understatement ever. It is a non stop stream of people packed in shoulder to should all going different directions! And I have to get from one side to the other... so glad I don't have to go into that station, my station is nowhere near that crowded. Will try to post a pic of it soon...

Rainy Season

2007-07-09T22:18:00.000+09:00

I'm confused. I keep hearing that it is rainy season at the moment. People are complaining that its hot and humid and rains all the time...
The only thing is that to me it doesn't really seem that bad, I don't really think its rained all that much (it rains for a day every few days, but not really pouring rain, just damp). Ok it is pretty hot and humid outside sometimes, but I've pretty much managed to avoid that. The only time I really have to be outside at all is the ten minutes walk to the station in the morning, then ten minute walk home at night (the building I work in has a train station inside it, so only need to go outside at the "home" end of the trip).
I suspect its going to get wetter and hotter yet, will have to wait and see...

Renting in Tokyo

2007-07-09T22:08:00.000+09:00

So we've found our house, as mentioned before, but I thought I should explain how we found it. It was a very different experience to looking for somewhere to rent in Sydney.
We had two agents that worked with us (they both spoke really good English aswell), we told them how many bedrooms etc and price range then they send through a heap of floor plans. You pick some and say "hey, I'd like to see these ones", then they come and pick you up and drive you around all afternoon and show you the apartments! Not like Sydney where you have to do it all yourself, here you have the same person who comes to you each time and takes you out to see everything. It makes house hunting very easy! and there is so much to choose from aswell!
Ok, so I may have a slightly easier experience than some (being an expat on relocation arrangement), but still, damn, what amazing service. But when you do decide on a place you do have to pay "agent fee" (like a months rent) but still, pretty damn good value if you ask me.
It actually made finding a place to live fun.

Photos from our new apartment

2007-07-01T21:42:00.000+09:00

So like i said in an earlier post, we've finally moved into our new place.

This is our funky new lounge room... Complete with strange swirly rug and funky couches. Oh and living in Japan would be complete without a nice TV!

The view out the window's not bad huh?
And it gets even better at night!

There's more photos in my photostream here.

never summer...

2007-07-01T15:28:00.001+09:00

never summer...
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

This is another photo dredged out from our holiday in Japan. Don't ask why, I just like the photo. I'm starting to get a bit of a collection like this of my board on various mountains, might post the rest eventually. Anyways this one is the view from near the top of Happo-one ski field in Hakuba Japan.

We stayed there for a week in January... we will be going back!

How fast is a fast internet connection?

2007-06-28T21:35:00.000+09:00

So after a week of being offline, I have now got an internet connection again. w00t!

Being that I work in IT, and rely on my internet connection a lot, ive always had good fast connections. Before I left .au I was using iinet's supposed 22mb connection, shame it only had connection speeds of about 1.5mb, but hey, I thought it was still pretty snappy... until now that is!

Now I'm in Tokyo ive got a 100mb (up and down!) connection! with no download limits, how nice.

So, sitting here at my desk, with a sensational view out over the bay (more on this later...), with a blindingly fast internet connection, life is pretty sweet!

heh.

Kinkakuji - Golden Temple

2007-06-20T22:02:00.001+09:00

IMGP1619
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

This is one of the pics from our holiday to Japan earlier this year. Just what everybody needs... a golden house, as in real gold!

I wonder how often you would have to polish something like this?

The place is called Kinkakuji, its in Kyoto. There's heaps of other cool stuff to see there aswell, but to me this was definately a highlight.

The rest of the photo's from the holiday will be in this set.

As promised

2007-06-20T21:22:00.000+09:00

Well as promised when i left .au i've now opened up a public blog, and a photostream on flickr. So with a bit of luck, you should be able to keep up with where we are and what we're doing.

Stay tuned for photos and ramblings from Japan.