Tokyo Mid Town Christmas

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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...

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...

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

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?

Workspace
Originally uploaded by k.blueice

Pretty happy with our new apartment.

Long time without posting…

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!

Long Weekend in Shiga Kogen

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.