Mostly Harmless

Geneva, Switzerland

2010-10-30T17:59:00.004-04:00

After Paris, it was on to Geneva, Switzerland, were we made a very short pit stop.

In addition to my slight Ferrari obsession, I also have one for Rolex. No trip through Switzerland would be complete without a stop at Rolex Headquarters.

After spending about 30 minutes wishing I had one of those babies, Wei Wei directed us to the Jet d’Eau Fountain. The fountain is one of the world's largest water jets, located in Geneva harbor. According to Wikipedia...

Five hundred litres (132 gallons) of water per second are jetted to an altitude of 140 metres (459 feet) by two 500 kW pumps, operating at 2,400 V, consuming over one megawatt of electricity.[3][4][5] The water leaves the nozzle at a speed of 200 km/h (124 mph). When it is in operation, at any given moment there are about 7,000 litres (1849 gallons) of water in the air. Unsuspecting visitors to the fountain—which can be reached via a stone jetty from the left bank of the lake—may be surprised to find themselves drenched after a slight change in wind direction.

You could walk along a concrete pathway into the harbor up to the base of the fountain, but you had to be brave to do so, unless you had an umbrella! The mist got heavier as you approached the base and left anyone who ventured up to it completely drenched. We went close enough to see the largest rainbow I've ever seen made by the fountain's spray.

After that we walked around the harbor for another half an hour, took some pictures, enjoyed the sunshine and sea breeze, and drove on to our next destination.

Paris, France

2010-10-30T00:31:00.003-04:00

During the summer of 2010, I went on a road trip with 3 friends around Europe. It was the most incredible trip I've ever been on. We visited a number of different countries and cities in a very short period of time. Each place was unique and interesting. Each of us got along very well with each other and it made the trip a lot of fun. Slowly over the next few months, I'll be noting some of the places we visited. I'll post pictures I took of the places and once in a while stories behind some of the pictures. Please let me know if you have any questions or insights about any of the locations. They were all fun and memorable in their own ways and I wish I could do it again sometime.

3,500 miles.
9 Days.
6 Countries.
4 people.

As you can imagine, we didn't spend much time in any one place. We had to be incredibly efficient with respect to sight seeing. We created lists of things we wanted to see, planned out routes, and moved quickly. A great trip with great friends.

The first stop was Paris, capital of France. In Paris we saw...

Notre Dame Cathedral

Pont Neuf

Arc du Carrousel

Musée d'Orsay

Louvre Museum

Champs de Elysee

Arc de Triomphe

...and of course...

Eiffel Tower

New York Comic Con 2010

2010-10-11T19:59:00.008-04:00

This Saturday I attended the New York Comic Convention at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. I don't have a habit of going to Comic Conventions, and I never read comics as a kid (nor do I now), but something really did make me want to go to this one. Maybe it's because I haven't watched Chasing Amy in a while, haven't been back to Tokyo in over a year, haven't played a video game in a while, or seen any anime. I also haven't done much shooting recently and I thought it would be a great venue for taking pictures, which it was. I was excited to go to the convention, but when I got there, it made me feel...well...old. Most of the people there were in their early twenties or younger. And those that were older were there either to chaperon their children who came dressed in costume, or were dressed in costume themselves and had brought there children. The latter obviously more creepy than the former. But there's always a feeling of comfort at these things. All attendees (except for the artists themselves) are there to escape some sort of reality, and aren't afraid to geek out, whether in costume or by asking detailed questions in panels or to artists about their work. The artists are there, well for obvious reasons, but most notably to support their livelihood. My friend Dave put is best when he said the artists there are the greatest celebrities on Earth during the conventions, and when the area clears out, lights shut off, and doors are locked, they can walk the streets with no one ever recognizing them. It's a strikingly close analogy persona of the superheros which they author.

Click the image below for photos from the convention.

Cherry Blossoms

2010-04-07T22:38:00.006-04:00

After missing the cherry blossoms while I was in Japan, albeit experiencing the plum blossoms and starting a wave of photography beneath the trees in Ueno Park, I went to go see the ones at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden with Rob and Missa. They were very rich, and very beautiful, even though they only had a few trees on display. Here are some pictures of our trip to the garden.

The High Line (New York)

2010-02-28T10:39:00.004-05:00

The High Line is a 1.5 mile elevated walk on the west side of Manhattan along the Hudson River. It's designated as a New York State Park as well. The High Line is different from most state parks, however, in that it's purely urban. Composed of old train tracks, an elevated boardwalk, and a view of the Hudson River, it's a unique place to visit, particularly at sunset. All the years I lived in New York City, I never visited this place until recently. It's a fun place to walk if you're looking to do something on a lazy afternoon in Manhattan. The best time to visit is around sunset to sundown, but of course it's more crowded then. Here are some photos of the High Line at these hours.

Singapore Supper

2010-02-25T00:19:00.002-05:00

Some food and drink from the sea coast in Singapore.

Singapore City Views

2010-02-25T00:10:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures I took from different locations in Singapore which highlight the city's skyline.

Clarke Quay

2010-02-24T23:57:00.002-05:00

Clarke Quay is where all the night life happens in Singapore. Restaurants, bars, clubs, boat rides, remote control airplanes and much more happens at Clarke Quay. The main area is lit up with colorful neon lights at night. Here are some images of the area.

Singapore Sunset

2010-02-24T23:45:00.002-05:00

Singapore, another work destination for me, has incredibly beautiful views of the sunset. Because of how close Singapore is the the equator, the sun during sunset is very large and very red. From the bar at the top floor of my hotel, I was able to take the following sunset pictures.

Victoria Peak

2010-02-24T00:20:00.002-05:00

No trip to Hong Kong is complete without going to Victoria Peak at night. You can see the entire city lit up from night from this location. You ride an old tramway up to the top of the peak on Hong Kong island. The peak has a number of restaurants, a small shopping mall, an observation deck, and some tails along which you can walk to get different views of the city and harbor below. Here are some shots I took from the peak.

Hong Kong Idol

2010-02-24T00:12:00.002-05:00

While exploring the Causeway Bay area of Hong Kong, which houses a large commercial shopping district, I came across a singing competition much like American Idol. There were commentators, judges, and contestants - some of who didn't make me cringe, and some who...well...could have used a little practice. One girl had to keep glancing at a scrap of paper to remember the words. The songs were song mostly in Cantonese. A few were in English, but not many. Anyway, here are some snapshots of the contestants in the Hong Kong Idol competition.

What's that old expression? "Better seen than heard"?

Hong Kong Snacks

2010-02-24T00:08:00.003-05:00

A few snapshots of the good food I had the few days I was in Hong Kong.

Yes, this fried prawn is larger than the entire plate! It was HUGE!

A cousin of Shabu-Shabu. They give you the soup broth and a number of raw meat, vegetable, and starch ingredients, and you boil the food yourself!

A delicious dessert! And healthy! Mostly fresh fruit!

Macau

2010-02-21T16:01:00.004-05:00

Macau is the "Sin City" of Hong Kong. Macau is home to much gambling, housing many casinos, and is said to bring in more revenue than Las Vegas, to which it is directly comparable. Many of the same owners who built casinos in Vegas have also built casinos in Macau. Macau is just a short 40 minute ferry ride away from Hong Kong. Ferries run several times an hour and is a convenient way to visit Macau. A lot of people who live in Hong Kong go pretty frequently to Macau for food, drinks, and a little gambling. Here are some photos I took in Macau.

FYI - It is so hot and humid in Macau that the photos that look like they are blurry are not out of focus. It's actually fog that formed on the front of the lens filter. This is one of the reason I didn't take many pictures outside in Macau. I had about 30 seconds when leaving an air-conditioned casino to take pictures outside before the front of the lens was completely fogged up.

Hong Kong

2010-02-20T19:18:00.004-05:00

Hong Kong Island is probably the place I liked the most while traveling through Asia on business in 2009. It felt more like a place I could live for a long period of time than either Singapore or Tokyo. During the few days I spent in Hong Kong, I visited some great places like Victoria Peak, Causeway Bay, and Central, and ate some amazing food. The best thing about the trip, though, was seeing a close childhood friend who I haven't seen in 18 years. It turns out he's a rap star in Hong Kong and very well established. I hung out with him every day after work and I can't wait to go back and visit again. Here are some photos I took while in Hong Kong.

Jake Handelman Senior Recital

2010-02-15T20:30:00.003-05:00

My youngest brother, Jake, is a Jazz Performance Major at Indiana University. He plays both piano and trombone, and had his senior recital this past weekend. He plays the way I wish I could play and had spent many years of my life trying to. Anyway, he could do at 8 what I couldn't do at 18. Now I'm his biggest fan. Here are some tunes he played, all of which he arranged and those you don't recognize he wrote himself. It's not because I'm proud to be his brother, which I am, that I love his music, although it probably does have to do with genetics. I also like to think I'm one of his biggest influences, at an early age at least, and most of the music I like rubbed off on him. After all, any time a CD of mine was mysteriously missing, I was pretty sure who had taken it. Anyway, without further ado, here are some pieces.

US Open 2009

2010-01-31T19:32:00.005-05:00

For some odd reason, I really enjoy watching tennis. I never really played tennis growing up or had any natural acclimation to the sport. I find the sport very appealing for many reasons. First, it isn't a team sport, which is strange for most popular televised sports (baseball, football, basketball, hockey, soccer, etc.). Actually the only frequently televised individual sport I can think of in the split second I'm writing this is golf. Golf. Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden. Well, it's more entertaining the the WMBA, I guess. Anyway, tennis tests the strength, dexterity, endurance, and strategy of two people as directly as possible, while keeping the sport element intact (I have no interest in watching martial arts or fencing related sports). It's also an arguably aerobic sport, which keeps points fast paced - another reason to watch it. Every summer I always hope there's a way I can get tickets to the US Open and see some good matches. The past couple years, I've been successful. This year (2009) my company was able to get tickets to one of the later matches. I got to see Rafael Nadal play Gael Monfils and Serena Williams play Flavia Pennetta. Two great match ups - I was not disappointed by the athleticism and skill displayed in both matches.

Suzhou, China

2010-01-27T23:01:00.004-05:00

Zuhou is a city in China located west and slightly north of Shanghai in the Jiangsu province. It is easily accessible from Shanghai by car and train, and is a natural destination to stop for a few hour for anyone traveling from Shanghai to Hangzhou, which we were.

According to Wikipedia: Suzhou (simplified Chinese: 苏州; traditional Chinese: 蘇州; pinyin: Sūzhōu; Suzhou dialect: [səu][tsøʏ]). The ancient name of Suzhou was Wu (simplified Chinese: 吴; traditional Chinese: 吳; pinyin: Nà; Suzhou dialect: Wú) Suzhou is a city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Taihu in the province of Jiangsu, China. The city is renowned for its beautiful stone bridges, pagodas, and meticulously designed gardens which have contributed to its status as a great tourist attraction. Since the Song Dynasty (960-1279), Suzhou has also been an important centre for China's silk industry and continues to hold that prominent position today. The city is part of the Yangtze River Delta region. The name of the city have been previously transcribed in English in various ways, including Su-chou (Wade-Giles system), Suchow, and Soochow. It is occasionally nicknamed the "Venice of the East" or "Venice of China".

I know Suzhou as one of the cities we stopped in during our tour of central China during the summer of 2009. Suzhou is a very beautiful place with many of the artifacts described in the paragraph above being easily accessible. We visited many of the ancient gardens and villages scattered about the historic city. We didn't sleep in Suzhou, so we only had time to visit the most famous gardens and residences. Here are some highlights from our trip:

In addition to the gardens and ancient homes, Zuzhou also boasts a dominant silk industry across most of China. Suzhou was one of the largest cities to participate in the far east's famous "Silk Road." The Suzhou Silk Museum is a museum in Suzhou, China. It documents the history of silk production and Suzhou embroidery from around 4000 BC. Exhibits include old looms with demonstrations, samples of ancient silk patterns, and an explanation of sericulture. Of major note is a room full of live silk worms, eating mulberry leaves and spinning cocoons. I've heard rumors, though, that since December 2009, the worms have been replaced with models. Sad news! I guess I'm one of the last people to actually see the real silk worms at work in Suzhou.

Hangzhou, China

2010-01-26T23:16:00.009-05:00

Hangzhou, the capital of China's Zhejiang province, is one of the most visited cities in China.

Hangzhou is home to China's famously beautiful West Lake, a lake well know for its mysterious fog, tranquil surface, and mountain enclosure. West Lake is also the location of many famous Chinese fairy tales, told to children when they are young. Taking the 45 minute peaceful trip around the lake in a Chinese covered boat is an experience you can't miss.

The lake is also home to Leifeng Pagoda, a several story pagoda which has a beautiful view of the lake. If you want, you can climb several flights of stairs to the top of the large pagoda.

The outskirts of Hangzhou are home to some of the most famous tea fields in China. China from these fields are renowned for their flavor and potency. The tea fields stretch as far as the eye can see, running from mountain to mountain. The average temperature in this region in July is over 91 degrees Fahrenheit, and can average around 100 degrees in the middle of the day. It felt much hotter than that - almost unbearable to be out side. The last thing anyone would think of doing in this weather is hike all the way up the tea fields to the top of a mountain, unless you're more than slightly masochistic - which I am, so of course I had to do it. The view was unbelievable. I could have stood up there for hours, regardless of the heat.

After eventually hiking down from the mountain, we had to try the tea. In fact, a large part of the day was spent tea tasting at different tea fields in the area. You could definitely taste the difference in the quality of the tea. The tea picked in the earlier months (March & April) was the freshest, tastiest, and of course, most expensive. All though the early tea is top crop, the mid-level teas weren't too bad. These teas were usually picked in May and June. Tea picked later than June is the least expensive, and to me, the least tasty. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the low quality tea and a cup of hot water. The richest tea, on the other hand, was delicious and quite refreshing, even though it was hot and the day felt even hotter.

Hangzhou is also home to the legendary Longjing, or Dragon Well. I forget why this well is special. Still the water from the well is cold and fresh - a definitely welcome drink anytime during the months of April and September.

So if you're traveling around central China near Shanghai, be sure to stop in Hangzhou for a night and experience the culture around West Lake.

Shades of Gray

2010-01-24T18:00:00.007-05:00

Let's face it, when at a live concert most people prefer to listen to songs they know and grew up with as opposed to new songs no matter how talented the band. Songs you recognize just bring out that extra bit of energy. It's also great to hear bands cover songs and not change them so they sound as close to the original as possible. This brings me to Shades of Gray, a New York City - Manhattan based cover band in which my friend Matt is the bassist. They are a talented group of musicians who most likely could write and perform their own material easily, but choose to play great rock hits of the last decades. They cover rock bands of all genres - classic rock, alternative, indie, grudge, retro, etc. They play songs we've all heard on the radio across many different stations at different points in our lives whether it's hanging out in friends' basements in middle school, driving around with our buddies in high school, going to house, frat, and dorm parties in college, staying up late and studying in grad school, and whatever events dominate our free time beyond. Shades of Gray play great music and are a blast to see live. This time, I decided to go and bring my camera. I know it would be a very low light situation with always moving musicians, I realized I didn't have an appropriate lens to take with me. The only lens I have faster than f/4 is my 100mm f/2.8 macro, which is supposed to be a great portrait lens in addition a razor sharp macro lens. I figured it was my only choice and would be an interesting test. I think a lot of shots turned out great with this lens, but the music turned out much better!

Anqing, Anhui, China

2010-01-02T00:31:00.012-05:00

Note: I'm having trouble finding the entry about my first visit to Anqing. Maybe I never wrote one. Not many people experience the Strike Back before the original, so I'll have to go back and write entries for the first time I've been to each of the "Strikes Back" places.

Anqing, Anhui is a small city in eastern China. Anqing is situated on the northern bank of the Yangtze River and contains several interesting landmarks. To be honest, you'd probably pass the city by if you were traveling through China, but for obvious reasons, Anqing is a place in which I feel I have a second home.
The great thing about visiting a small city like Anqing is that it hasn't been corrupted by Western influences like parts of Shanghai and Beijing have. Yes, it has McDonald's, KFC, and Starbucks, but you'll be pressed to find a city in the world that doesn't. What I mean is that life is still very much the same in this city has it has been for decades. People still go to the market to buy live or freshly slaughtered animals for meals. Fresh street food is the breakfast of choice. Bicycles are used for what they were invented to do - fulfill a mode of transportation, not race, ride down mountains, or sit elevated above the ground for exercise purposes. The people live a simple but hardworking life. The city is mostly industrial with agricultural centers at the periphery. I'll save the family and food related posts for the future and in this one give a brief illustrated guide to the city.
At Night

Balloon Man Outside the Hospital

Mobile Fruit Stand

View of the Yangtze River

Walking by the Yangtze River

In the Shoe District
Zhenfeng Pagoda

River Greeting Temple Grounds
Dinner Time Street Vendor

Huangshan, Anhui, China

2009-12-30T18:31:00.008-05:00

Huangshan, also known as Yellow Mountain or Mount Huang, is a mountain with beautiful scenery and nature located in the Anhui province of China. This mountain is a famous tourist location both in the winter and in the summer. The base of the mountain is reachable by car and bus in most seasons. Most accommodations and shops are located at the base of the mountain. The mountain is 1,800 meters high and has a tramway running from the base to halfway up the mountain. You have the option of taking the tramway or hiking up the mountain and the same choice for your return trip. There is a hotel at the top of the mountain if you wish to stay there overnight. If you are in decent shape, you don't need more than two days to see the mountain. If you are super ambitious and want to see all 36 peaks, you'll need more time. I think two days is more than enough time. Here are some shots from a summer excursion up and down the mountain.

There are also many things to see at the base of the mountain also. There are several ancient villages still functioning the same way the have for hundreds of years around the mountain. They are well preserved and can be visited. There are also several natural wonders near the base of the mountain. One site contains several waterfalls while another is called the Valley of the Phoenix. It was the filming location for the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It has beautiful jade colored pools of water, waterfalls, bamboo forests, and mountain trails. All these locations can be seen in just over half a day. If you travel all the way into the wilderness (3 hour bus ride from the city of Anqing, from which I departed for this trip), you should definitely make time to see these places as well. No doubt where ever you go, there will be a fair share of people wanting to sell you tea, trinkets, snacks, meals, lodging, and supplies. Here are some shots from these other locations.

Shanghai, China

2009-12-29T22:31:00.008-05:00

The city of Shanghai, China, is a world within itself. The discrepancy between the rich and the poor is so great and uniformly distributed that it gives arise to a very interesting culture. One of the most affluent and touristy parts of the city is plush with streets containing residents who look like their living 100 years ago - street merchants selling street food and house wares litter the street. This dynamic leads to cheap and great tasting food, interesting neighborhoods, beautiful architecture, and a strong jolt of culture shock. If you ever decide to take a trip to Shanghai, here are some of the things you're likely to encounter and places you must visit.

1. Yuyuan Garden

2. Old Shanghai

3. Oriental Pearl TV Tower

4. Nanjing Road During the Day

5. Nanjing Road at Night

6. The Bund

There are some other suggestions I have if you go to Shanghai.

First, find a place with a good city view during the day and at night. You won't regret it. The Oriental Pearl TV Tower does not count as when you get to the top, all the windows are tinted and dirty. Try a tall hotel or office building.

Second, try the food!

And third, go with friends!

Brooklyn Bridge

2009-12-26T22:31:00.004-05:00

There are some things people need to do at least once in their life - things that are such important character building events that they shape the persona in ways so dramatically that you're never really the same afterward. One of those activities is walking across the Brooklyn Bridge on a clear day, regardless of temperature. It's important to do this at least once in your life. It really puts into perspective the progress of human engineering, the age of the city and the bridge, just how small we are to natural bodies like the East River, and how far man can go to conquer nature. Two suggestions, albeit not necessary while crossing the bridge: 1. Bring a camera. 2. Go with a pretty girl or a good friend, or both. I was lucky enough to do this for the first time with Robearlier in the year.

More Samurai Swords

2009-12-26T21:53:00.007-05:00

Yes, to answer your question. Yes, I do have an obsession with Japanese swords. Well, not really an obsession as much as a deep respect for the perfect marriage of science, art, and sport. They are designed, forged, and sharpened by only the best craftsmen and used by the most honorable warriors of the world. Here's what the article Interesting Facts on Samurai Sword Manufacture by Nick Johnson has to say on the subject.

A samurai's sword is his most sacred and prized possession. Not only did the samurai rely on his sword to defend him, but spiritually the sword held greater significance as the samurai actually believed his soul inhabited the sword. Therefore it comes as no surprise that the same discipline and respect in which the samurai wielded his sword, went into the actual making of the sword itself.

Swords weren't simply 'cast' in a mould and then sharpened. A Japanese samurai sword was made by an intricate process of heating the steel, hammering it flat, then folding it, then hammering it flat again, and folding. This process of repeated hammering and folding would be done up to as much as 30 times, or until the maker was satisfied it had been done properly.

There are quite a few reasons for this labour-intense procedure. Firstly, any air pockets which might develop during the heating of the steel would be eliminated. Having an air pocket in a seemingly solid blade would be a weak point, and any weak point would be seen as neglect and any dedicated artisan would produce the highest quality blades as if his own life depended upon the very blade he was forging. Secondly, in the repeated folding and hammering, what might be described as 'layers' were produced. Take a book and roll it up it parallel with the spine, these internal layers would look something like this, almost like the rings of a cross section of a tree trunk. This added much strength to the blade.

Also the natural strengthening carbon elements within the steel, as well as the steels impurities would be spread throughout the whole of the sword, therefore strengthening it in its entirety. When the blade came to be cooled it wasn't simply quenched in water, another process had to be done first. When steel is been cooled, if it cools from a high temperature right down to cold in a short amount of time, the metal becomes very hard and brittle. Conversely, if steel is cooled slowly from a lower temperature right down to cold, the steel takes on more supple, even softer properties. Because a samurai sword was used primarily as a slicing weapon the blades were subjected to a lot of shock upon impact on the enemy, therefore the blade couldn't be made of the more brittle steel throughout else it would shatter like glass. But the sword had to retain its sharp edge, so it couldn't be made of softly forged steel throughout else it would simply blunt. So a balance was struck using a very clever procedure. What the Japanese samurai sword makers discovered was by painting on a clay formula onto the blade before quenching, thin amounts onto the cutting edge and thicker amounts onto the back, the steel could be made to take on two completely separate properties, thereby giving the blade the hard cutting edge it required, and the more supple back. Because of the different speeds in which the two halves of the steel cooled this also formed the beginning of the curve from which the sword makers would work to create the famous curved blade.

The result is that every time I'm in Ueno Park, I always visit the Tokyo National Museum to see the swords and other weapons they have on display. They will forever be my favorite weapon. Well, until I can get my hand on a lightsaber, anyway.

Japanese Snack Food

2009-12-24T13:39:00.007-05:00

In America we have all kinds of snack food - chips, pretzels, cheese puffs, cookies, crackers, candy, etc. All of this food can be found in pretty much any convenience store. Snack food is so universal in the US that it's even used as pop-culture references on TV sitcoms.

WILLIE: Mr. Costanza, I really don’t have time for this.
GEORGE: Now, if this mechanic guy, was, in fact, eating a 5th Avenue bar, as he claimed, wouldn’t you agree he would have no problem picking one out from a candy line-up?
WILLIE: "Candy line-up"?
GEORGE: I’ve spent the last hour preparing ten candy bars with no wrappers of identification of any kind for him to select from.
WILLIE: It took you an hour?
GEORGE: Only I hold the answer key to their true candy identities. And so, without further ado, I give you.. the candy line-up. (Opens a door to a back room.
Various dealership employees are munching on candy bars)
SALESWOMAN: Hey, Willie, check it out! Free candy!
GEORGE: That’s my candy line-up! Where are all my cards?! They’re - they’re all on the floor!
(George starts picking up the numbered cards from off the floor. He sees the mechanic eating one of the candy bars)
GEORGE: And you! How many Twix does that make for you, today?! Like, 8 Twix?!
MECHANIC: No.
MAN: Hey, this Clark bar is good.
GEORGE: It’s a Twix! They’re all Twix! It was a setup! A setup, I tell ya! And you’ve robbed it! You’ve all screwed me again! Now, gimme one! Gimme a Twix!
MECHANIC: They’re all gone.
GEORGE: (Yelling out, frustrated. The camera spins from a top angle) Ttttttwwwwiiiiiixxxxx!

Japan, with it's own convenience stores, also has its own snack food. Of course I can't cover all the sweets that are offered in Japan, but here are a couple so you can get an idea of what children all over the islands are craving.

Powdered Doughnut with Red Bean Paste

Chinese Dumplings

Tiny Fish

Japanese Cinnamon Bun

Japanese Melon Bread (Does not contain melon, or any fruit for that matter...)

And MY Personal Favorite: Japanese Raisin Bread!

Asakusa, Tokyo

2009-12-24T12:45:00.006-05:00

According to Wikipedia, Asakusa (浅草?) is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several more temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals..

Asakusa is a neighborhood of Tokyo which contains many preserved temples and shrines. I've visited Asakusa many times, but in March 2009 I got lucky with the combination of being in Asakusa and having a perfectly clear day. It was the perfect time to bear the cold for a few hours, travel around Asakusa, and take some photographs of the temples, shrines, and pagodas. If you are ever in Tokyo, this is one of the must-visit tourist places you'll see. Inside of the city, you won't find a better temple than the Sensō-ji temple.

Here is a picture of the temple's entrance.

Once you enter the temple grounds, you walk through a long shopping arcade to get to the temple itself.

Eventually you'll reach the temple...

...and it's Five Story Pagoda.

You can also explore the temple grounds where they have other shrines, flower arrangements, a pond, and several Buddha statues.

Kamakura, Japan

2009-12-24T11:23:00.006-05:00

I was able to make it back to Kamakura in Kanagawa, Japan. I have to say that of all the locations easily accessible around Tokyo, Kamakura is my favorite. I'm not sure why, but it's the most fun to walk around. All three times I've spent time in Japan, I've been by myself. When you're in a foreign country for work, and don't know many people, you become very good friends on the weekends with (or at least I do) your camera and your maps. I did travel to some new places in Kamakura, but I did see some old places first. Again, I wasn't too pleased with how many of the pictures came out. Next time, I'll bring my polarizing filter, learn how to use the camera a little better, and try to take some better pictures. Still though, just being there felt great. It's a very peaceful place, even if there are so many other tourists there. Here are some of the memories that make me always want to visit there whenever I'm in Tokyo.

Old Japanese Lanterns at the Hase Kannon Temple

Old Japanese Cobblestone Paths and Bridges

Japanese Bamboo Forests

If you go in the spring and summer time, you'll see beautiful flowers all over the places that you just don't see in the fall. They were so colorful and diverse that it would be impossible (or frustrating and time consuming) to photograph them all, but they made the environment one that was unforgettable.

The Japanese Shoreline

1000 Little Buddhas

And again, a visit to the mighty Great Buddha (Daibatsu) of Kotokuin...

Japanese Buddha Exhibit

2009-12-19T02:06:00.005-05:00

Back to Toyko! I returned to Tokyo in June 2009 again on business. This time, however, I went with a new companion - my new Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro Lens.

I didn't get to travel around that much outside of Tokyo, but I was able to stop at some old favorite places, one of them being the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park. I decided to give this lens a try inside the museum. I shot a number of items, but this post will be dedicated to the statues in the Japanese Buddha Exhibit I photographed. I'm sure there are some of the same statues in my earlier posts but I think some of the Buddhas came out pretty well with the new lens. They make me feel so serene and peaceful that I could stare at these sculptures for hours. Perhaps that's their intent. Here are some soothing images to help you relax.

Washington Square Arch

2009-12-17T00:01:00.006-05:00

I attended graduate school at New York University's Stern School of Business. Across the street from the business school is Washington Square Park which not is a major filming location for many Hollywood Movies, but also houses the famous Washington Square Arch, much resembling the Arc de Triomphe at the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Last Saturday I was at NYU decided to take some photos of the arch in the park after sunset. This frigid day was also coincidentally Santa Con. Here are some photos I took of the arch.

Russians Be Stealin!

2009-12-09T23:55:00.005-05:00

I figured Russia stopped spying on American photographs (and vice versa) at the end of the Cold War, but I was dead wrong. Today I noticed some abnormal activity on my Flickr account. This summer I was fortunate enough to get tickets to the US Open (post to follow), brought my camera as you probably would suspect, and took a number of action shots. All the photos can be see in my Flickr US Open set. Noticing the view count was extremely high on most of the photos in this set and no others, I checked the referrers and saw one I didn't recognize. It turned out to be a Russian sports site, much analogous to our ESPN network. The Russians stole my US Open photographs, doctored them, and posted them on their site!! Unbelievable!! Looks like The Comrades crushed us capitalist swine yet again! No, but seriously, check out what they did to my Serena Williams picture.

The Las Vegas Underground

2009-12-08T22:47:00.007-05:00

If you want to get out from underneath the blazing sun, take your pick of casinos. Each casino has its own theme and the inside of each one is like a different world. I tried to see as many as we could in our 3 days there, but it was just impossible. Here are some shots from our favorite interiors.

The Beatles Love Theater at the Las Vegas Mirage

The Inside of Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino

The Fountain at The Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino

The Ceiling of the Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino

Ceiling of the Bellagio Hotel Resort and Casino

The Beatles Revolution Lounge at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas

Inside The Venetian Resort Hotel and Casino

The Wynn and Encore Hotel Casino Theater

Moving Fountain Statues at Caesars Palace Las Vegas

The Forum Shops at Caesars Palace Las Vegas

In-N-Out Burger

2009-12-05T11:04:00.007-05:00

Heaven on Earth. Seriously. If you ever go to Los Angeles, don't go to Hollywood, don't go to Venice Beach, don't go to Malibu. GO TO IN-N-OUT BURGER. Best burger I ever had. Where else can you get a mouth-watering double burger for $2.99? And no, I'm not talking about one of those fast-food, come in a trapezoidal cardboard box, looks like your great aunt Bertha sat on it burgers. This is the kind of burger you'd make for yourself if you were generously hosting a barbecue, not the ones you'd give to your friends who left me freezing outside working the grill all day while they are all inside watching the game, drinking beer, and flirting with my girlfriend last Sunday afternoon.

Let me give you the run down. You'll recognize In-N-Out burger from it's tall distinctive landmark signage.

You could hit up the drive-through, but I strongly recommend parking and heading inside for the full experience.

Enter In-N-Out burger and head up to the counter.

Check out the menu and place your order.

Wait for them to call your number and deliver you your awesome burger, tasty fries, and beverage of choice.

Viva Las Vegas

2009-12-03T23:44:00.004-05:00

There are two sides to Las Vegas - the inside and the outside (what did you think I was going to say?). Being inside a Las Vegas casino is almost like stepping into another universe - it's very exciting and new, but you get lost very easily and are usually stuck there a long time. It reminds me a lot of Zarniwoop's office. This is, of course, intentional, as you are supposed to be enticed to spend as much time inside the casino as possible. I will cover the insides of Las Vegas casinos in another post. This post is about what happens if you are able to escape the immense gravity which draws us into Vegas' casinos and clubs, and actually make it outside, day or night. If you can rip yourself away from the illusion and walk down the strip to see the outsides of the casinos, you've made it back into the real world! Viva Las Vegas!

Here's a quick tour of what you may encounter on the Las Vegas strip.

The Mirage

The Bellagio during the day

The Bellagio at night

The Eiffel Tower at The Paris

The Luxor Sphinx

The Venetian

The Wynn and The Encore

Casino Royale

The Paris Hot Air Balloon During The Day

The Paris Hot Air Balloon At Night

And you might even find a little Love.

Pacific Coast Highway

2009-12-02T22:22:00.009-05:00

You always see it in movies and TV shows - the Pacific Coast Highway or PCH for short. It's one of the most famous highways in the LA area mostly because it runs along the Pacific Ocean, has an amazingly beautiful view, stretches on for miles, and is very frequently used in movie scenes. High speed car chases, the protagonist driving into the sunset with the top down and the wind blowing, or beach scenes, the PCH is probably the ideal filming spot. If you have a chance to visit LA, make sure you take a drive down this highway. The views are amazing and unique at everyone along the road.

On one side of the PCH you have the ocean...

...and on the other side everything from residential homes to the campus of Pepperdine University.

When you reach Malibu...

...you can veer away from the ocean and head up into the mountains via narrow long and winding road.

There are dirt pits along the shoulder of the road in certain locations where you can stop for a moment and enjoy the view as you ascend the grassy and rolling hills.

If you have the time and patience to drive all the way to the end of the tricky road, you'll find the path to the highest local point in Malibu. You'll have to hoof it the rest of the way, like Jenny did.

But once you get to the top, the view is definitely worth it!

Dolphins at The Mirage

2009-12-01T21:48:00.007-05:00

If you're ever in Las Vegas and you'd like to get outside and way from all the gambling for an hour or so, check out The Secret Garden at the Mirage Hotel and Casino. This animal preserve houses many animals trained by the famous animal trainers Siegfried & Roy. There are two parts to The Secret Garden. One part contains many rare land mammals such as a white male lion, a white tiger, and a baby leopard. While these animals are beautiful to look at, they're a little boring. They hardly move from their spots except when the blazing sun shifts and the shade moves, or to get a drink of water. The real action is on the other side of the Garden.

The other side of the garden contains a small water park for trained dolphins. Here these very active mammals leap up and down doing tricks, splashing, and playing around. Sometimes the trainers will put on a small show, let the dolphins play with a ball, have them swim up alongside the pool and let you feed them, or show you the entrance to the underground tunnel which leads you down to the bottom of the tanks so you can get a closer look of the dolphins. Seeing the dolphins also let me practice a bit of action photography. Here's what I came away with:

For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons. - Douglas Adams

The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the 'Star Spangled Banner', but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish. - Douglas Adams

Arnold Schwarzenegger

2009-11-30T22:17:00.007-05:00

Growing up with my brothers, I'm pretty sure we watched every single Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone movie. Rambo, Rocky, Over the Top, Total Recall, Terminator, T2, pretty much all Muscle Movies. One of our favorites was Demolition Man. The movie Demolition Man staring Sylvester Stallone was released in 1993. In this Stallone movie, there's actually a reference to Schwarzenegger. IMDB can explain it better than I can:

Lenina Huxley tells John Spartan about the Arnold Schwarzenegger Presidential Library, explaining that, based on the sheer popularity of his movies, a Constitutional amendment was passed in order for Schwarzenegger to run for president, which, according to Huxley, he did. In 2003, ten years after this film's release, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California and shortly after his election, three senators separately proposed amendments to the US Constitution to allow naturalized citizens to become president. Additionally, Stallone, along with Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Demi Moore backed the opening of the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain.

On a trip I took to Los Angeles with my sister, her boyfriend, and my girlfriend, we were hanging out one morning on Rodeo Drive. We were minding our own business until we saw a black Cadillac Escalade and several bodyguards in front of a high end watch, jewelry, and porcelain store. Peeking inside who did we see but the Terminator.

All of a sudden all the years I spent watching his movies and documentaries with my brothers, memorizing his lines, joking around with my brother when we were working out that we were Schwarzenegger flashed before my eyes. Not only that, but I also had my DSLR over my shoulder. What happened next couldn't have been more perfect. Arnold left the store, turned, and started walking down the sidewalk directly at me. Everything was in slow motion. As he walked, I raised my camera, peered down the viewfinder, and took the shot. When I lowered the lens, he was right in front of me, and I had to back out of the way before he would have walked over me. My heart and mind were racing. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life. Arnold is the man.

Been So Long

2009-11-29T20:00:00.005-05:00

Yes, I'm back. I know I've been gone for several months, and it's time to get back into blogging mode. A lot has happened in the past couple months. I traveled quite a bit - Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Shanghai, Huangshan, Anqing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. I've also been able to spend some time around NYC, work and travel permitting, including Citi Field, Brooklyn Bridge, the US Open, The High Line, Times Square, and other local favorites. I've been having fun with my camera, but have also been very busy trying to advance my career. Probably the most notable event since the last time I've written is that I'm now engaged. Looks like I have catching up to do with posts! Stay tuned!

Also note that the title of this post is my favorite Percy Hill song.

Samurai Swords

2009-03-18T22:47:00.006-04:00

Some really nice swords from the 12th-14th century were on display at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park.

More on Flickr.

Plum Blossoms

2009-03-16T23:05:00.003-04:00

The spring blooming of the cherry blossoms in Japan is supposedly one of the most beautiful sights in nature. Never being in Japan at the right time, this is something I've never seen. However, a few weeks before the cherry trees blossom, the plum blossoms bloom. It's still a little early, but I did get to see some while I was in Tokyo. Here are a few shots of the plum blossoms.

In front of the Tokyo National Museum...

In Ueno Park...

When I went to see the plum blossoms in the park, there were many people in the park as per usual, but not many people there to specifically see the plum blossoms. Everyone was walking by them like the were just trees that are normally there (like in my second shot). I watched for a while before starting to shoot. Then I was the only person standing directly underneath the trees taking photographing them up close. I could feel people starting to watch me, and then pull out whatever camera they had - cell phones, pocket cameras, etc. By the time I finished, there were dozens of people mimicking me (imagine crowds of people under the trees in the second shot, where I was when taking the macro photos above). Yeah, I'm a trend setter. :-) Maybe it's because everyone else felt like they were missing out on something when they saw me, but really I think it's because I noticed something interesting before them. Go me.

View of Tokyo

2009-03-15T21:53:00.002-04:00

Back in NYC. It was a pretty long flight, but that was to be expected. I have to work tomorrow. It's amazing how soon you can go from working in Tokyo to working in NYC. The building I work in in Tokyo is called Izumi Garden Tower, probably because the entire outside of the building is constructed from transparent green glass. At sunset, the view of Tokyo from my building is pretty amazing. Here are a couple shots.

Here is a picture of Izumi Garden Tower late at night.

Why do I have this picture, you ask? Because on my last day, I wanted to walk to the Tokyo Tower. I hadn't gone all trip and I really like looking at the tower's architecture. On the way back, I got lost and IGT was my only landmark. So I started walking towards it and eventually found this view. It also started to rain pretty heavily that night, and I didn't have an umbrella, which is probably why I have this cold now. Anyway, here are some pictures of the tower.

I like this one a lot. I took it from underneath one of the legs. You can see the top of the tower through the beams if you look carefully. It's probably easier to see on the larger version (click).

Japanese Cutie

2009-03-04T08:00:00.003-05:00

Yes, I admit it. I met a girl here in Japan...and she's REALLY cute! Her mom was the photographer at a rock show I went to in Yoyogi Park. I got front row seats, but mostly because it was cold and rainy, and I was practically the only person there. But enough about me. All I can say is this little girl has skills!!

She was amazing at taking pretend pictures when her mommy would take real ones.

She is the best person I've seen at hopping in a long time!

She also could have been a professional stretcher!

Lock Around the Crock

2009-03-03T06:51:00.003-05:00

Ummm....

Harajuku

2009-03-02T07:23:00.003-05:00

Harajuku is where cosplay kids go to hang out. Definitely a must-see if you're in Tokyo. Here are a few pictures.

And this is for Rob...

Tokyo Arrival Pictures

2009-02-28T19:48:00.003-05:00

As promised, here are some departure from NYC and arrival in Tokyo pictures.

Just Me and Time

The Eggman who took me to Tokyo

Air Pepsi!

It's Alive!

I thought it was a great portrait, so I had to take it.

One more shot of this bad bay and we're off!

Finally made it to my apartment in Tokyo!

But my real destination is the best ramen place in the WORLD. I've been craving this place for months. It doesn't look like much from the outside (nor the inside, either) and the only make one thing, but it's damn good.

Back In Tokyo

2009-02-28T07:14:00.002-05:00

I'm back in Tokyo now. I am pretty tired, but no where near as tired as last time. I'm not sure as to why. I didn't sleep on the plane that much, but I'm doing pretty well here. Maybe I'll even make it to 10pm if I'm lucky. Getting to the apartment was a piece of cake, unlike last time where I had no idea where I was going. I even managed to squeeze in a quick dinner at my favorite ramen place right outside my apartment after unpacking and showering. I have taken some pictures since my departure this morning, but I'm not convinced they are good enough to post online. I'll have to sort through them at sometime. I hope I can do a little bit while I'm here, but most likely it will get done after I return back to the states in 2 weeks. I'll try to write pretty much every day and maybe post some pictures, but we'll see how busy I am once work starts. Well, here's to being back in Tokyo!

105th & 5th Ave

2009-02-22T18:19:00.008-05:00

There's a part of Central Park which is only open from sunrise to sunset. Since it's detached from the rest of the park and is located near the northeast tip of the park, its usually quieter than the rest of the park. Sometimes it's used for outdoor events such as weddings, but is never restricted (as far as I know) from the public.

I started coming here a few years, and when I started to get interested in photography, I started taking pictures here. It's interesting to see how my photography has progressed from the images taken at this location. Here is a shot of a fountain (which happens to be my favorite fountain in the whole city) in this part of the park in the Spring of 2007.

This is supposed to be a portrait of the fountain, and admittedly not a very good one. The background is in sharp focus. Now, I might not have been able to blur it since the aperture of a compact, which is all I had at that time, is tiny, but it's not something I had thought about either. I also feel the image is overexposed. Notice how the colors of the flowers in the background seem to be all washed out. What I do like about this picture is that she seems to be dancing around the fountain - I captured the full body including the dress swinging around her, but again, this wasn't intentional and didn't think about it at the time of the shot. The water droplets on her fingertips and arm are also nice, but again I didn't really notice them at the time, otherwise I probably would have taken a macro shot of them.

I returned to the park last week with Rob and my SLR, and unintentionally took this picture of the same fountain.

It was only looking back at my old photos that I realized I wanted to compare this portrait with the one from 2007 to see if I've improved at all. I think this is a much better portrait but still has many issues. The background is blurred to bring attention to my subject. This was intentional at the time I took the picture and not an artifact of automatic settings. The background also has better exposure and is darker than the subject's face, yet again drawing your eyes to the signal of the joy she is supposed to be having. I think I would have preferred more of her body (i.e. the dress whipping around her) and of course the water droplets are always nice, but the fountain isn't on in the winter. Maybe in a few months I'll find myself with another improved portrait of this statue.

Here are some other shots I took while in this part of the park. I should mention it was a bright, crisp, chilly day out with little humidity, which provided the opportunity to give my new polarizing filter a test run.

I really like this last picture more than any other I took that day, but admittedly, it's not one of mine. Rob took this shot, and after looking at it, I think it's brilliant. Take a moment to click on the picture and see it in its full size. This compressed image makes it look blurry. He used a couple techniques, whether aware of it or not. 1) Leading lines - notice the parallel fence and the path leading in from the lower left hand corner. They lead the viewer's eye into the center of the picture and keep your eyes from wandering to the side. 2) Vanishing point - the sides of the path seem to converge as it travels further away. 3) Pathways - yes this might be obvious after taking the spot but because we are used to walking on pathways, our eye usually follows them, and this one happens to be well composed in the shot. 4) Misdirection - what we really want to look at is the white mansion through the trees in the background, but our eye has to cross parallel leading lines (the path and fence) and look through the tangled tree branches to do this, making it more rewarding when we see the mansion rising above the park. Nice work!

Seagulls and Pancakes

2009-02-17T19:56:00.012-05:00

At first, the seagulls didn't want any part of it. They continued to do their Pilates...

...and their Tai Chi (this is the "Crane" move).

One of the seagulls to take a nibble of pancake, who flew off to show his friends.

St. Mark's Place

2009-02-04T23:07:00.012-05:00

St. Mark's Place is just one of those streets in Greenwich Village that just screams "YOU'RE IN THE VILLAGE!" Outside of Chinatown and probably the NYU library, St. Mark's Place probably is where you find the highest concentration Asians in Manhattan, but unlike the ones in the NYU library, they've traded their study spectacles and polo shirts for ripped jeans and metal accessories.

If a museum is where historical artifacts display themselves after they are no longer in the mainstream, then Greenwich Village (GV) is same for Pop Culture of all generations and cultures with St. Mark's Place (SMP) as its Smithsonian. The main entrance to GV is Astor Place, marked by its famous cube.

Here's a quick tour of some of the things you'll see along St. Mark's Place.
1. The Trash Section featuring the Trash Store

2. St. Mark's Comics and its retro Superman sign

3. The Record Store - you know, in case you need any

4. Consumption Junction - its like a tongue twister for your eyes

5. The Sock Stand - would you seriously wear socks from here?

6. The all-time BEST Yakitori restaurant!

7. A place for all your Tibetan wears...

8. Some underground fairy store

And much more! I'm sure I'll write more about this street, but if you've never been or want a fun place to walk around for a little while, check out St. Marks!

Rockefeller Center

2009-02-02T19:00:00.018-05:00

One frigid Saturday after New Years, I decided to walk around the city in solitary with my G7. I'm not sure what possessed me to do so. Perhaps it was guilt for not running all winter, or my desire to actually do something outside my apartment during the day on a winter weekend, or my curiosity to determine whether I was actually dedicated to photography enough to purchase a real DSLR.

I need to take a moment to say goodbye to Sevens. Two years ago, I purchased my first camera, the Canon PowerShot G7. (What? It used to be good back then!)

Two weeks ago, I let one of my brothers borrow my camera, who lost it. Surprisingly, he is the more trustworthy of my two brothers. To replace it, he got me the Canon SD880 IS, which according to Ken Rockwell is one of Canon's best cameras.

I like the idea of having one real DSLR and one compact to carry around, and this one is definitely smaller than the G7, but I have yet to determine whether it's image quality is better. Good bye, Sevens, may you...

So, as I was saying...one place I decided to walk around was Rockefeller Center. Maybe I've been watching too much 30 Rock but I really had a desire to take some pictures of the area. I didn't get the exact shot I wanted (a shot from underneath Atlas looking up at 30 Rock) but I did get some nice ones. I even experimented with HDR (something I can't do on the 880 do to lack of exposure bracketing) and for my first time at it with a hand held compact, I think they came out all right. So here are the Atlas shots.

Directly across from Atlas is St. Patrick's Cathedral, so I was in prime position to take some shots across the street.

I walked around the main plaza also with the huge Christmas tree and the the ice skating rink to take some other pictures, but I don't like how any of them came out so you won't be seeing them. :-) However, I will show you one of the angels which lined the alley to the plaza. Enjoy!

Hida-Takayama, Japan

2009-01-31T02:47:00.011-05:00

My final sightseeing location on my six week stay in Japan was the village of Hida-Takayama. This small mountain town is located due west of Tokyo, up in the Japanese alps.

Protected up in the mountains, this old village has preserved an ancient Japanese way of life. The major attractions in this location show how the Japanese lived centuries ago.

After a long peaceful train ride through the Japanese countryside, I arrived in Hida-Takayama. The scenery during the train ride was stunning. We covered all sorts of beautiful terrain including the sea shore with thick white clouds in a bright blue sky hovering over a deep blue ocean, in and out of rich green tree covered mountain, through stone caves in the mountain face, and snaking along a swap green colored river in the valley between the mountains. Finally arriving in Takayama in the early afternoon, I checked into my hotel and made my way to the first place I wanted to see - Hida Folk Village or as the Japanese call it Hida-No-Sato.

This is an old preserved Japanese village with the original structures of the village still standing. It's pretty much all you could expect from an ancient Japanese village high in the alps. It had everything from old residents with thick pointed thatched roofs to cut through heavy snow, to a mill, blacksmith's shop, lumber cabin, and other elements of a quaint village you'd expect to find.

It was very peaceful up in the mountains and the only other people I saw aside from those keeping the village running were a handful of other tourists. It's no wonder this village was left untouched.

You could even enter some of the houses. The insides had low ceilings to keep the heat in, but many rooms each with a different purpose. The hard wood floors sometimes had wool woven carpets, but most were bare and cold. It sort of makes you appreciate how people used to live without the convenience of modern technology.

I returned back to the town of Takayama and found some dinner as night was quickly approaching. I spent the evening hour walking to and around a neighborhood in Takayama which was an old preserved Geisha district.

Once of this area's famous landmarks is its Sanmachi Bridge. I got some nice time exposure shots of it from a parallel street.

And then a close-up in the sunset.

The Geisha District had a famous restaurant which was known as a hangout for clan leaders and samurai warriors. Apparently you had to know someone to get a reservation in the restaurant and couldn't just walk in. This remains true still today.

Kanazawa, Japan

2009-01-29T12:01:00.025-05:00

There are rumors I might be going back to Japan sometime soon, so I figured I better hurry up and finish my posts from the last trip. My next trip won't be nearly as long nor adventurous as my first one. The trip I'm still writing about covered an itinerary (with the exception of Mt. Koya which I couldn't book due to lack of vacancies) like the following:

Only two destinations left to write about - Kanazawa and Takayama (and maybe some interesting foods).

Kanazawa is a small city located on the northern shore of Japan. It's the only place I've visited on Japan's western shore. Being off the beaten path from major cities like Tokyo and Osaka means I had to take local instead of bullet trains there. It also means its quieter than the other tourist locations I visited.

Like most places I visited, I only had 1 day booked in Kanazawa and I spent most of my time getting there from my previous location. This means that throughout my trip, whenever I finally got to a new city (usually around 2-3pm, I had only a few hours to find my hotel, walk around, see what I wanted to see in available daylight, find food, and hit the hay so I get get up the next day and figure out how to get to the next city. Yes, it was a very hectic schedule, and I did end up getting sick near the end. I was on very little sleep, ate one meal a day with at most a snack on the train, pushing myself to walk around for hours at a time to see everything I wanted to, didn't bring appropriate clothing for the fall and chilly climate of the Japanese alps (Kanazawa and Takayama), and would do it all again given the chance!

One of Kanazawa's most beautiful attractions is Kenroku-en Garden, or the Garden of Six Attributes. The garden is more like a park then a garden. It has many different sections and takes a good 2-3 hours to really absorb it all. It is considered to be one of Japan's Top 3 Gardens. Even in mid October, the garden grounds are spectacular. The garden has several famous landmarks, one being its "bowstring" lantern which sits in one of shaded ponds. The garden is a great place to spend an afternoon in reflection.

My next stop in Kanazawa was Kanazawa Castle. Disappointingly most of the castle grounds were close for construction. I supposed this saved me a little time, as I had to spend less wondering the castle grounds. The grounds are beautiful and you do get to walk around the foundation ancient castle. The castle was once destroyed in massive fire and reconstructed years later. The grounds include, in addition to the castle, a forest, fields, a moat, and several support structures.

There are several shrines and temples scattered around the city. I decided to venture by foot to some of the ones that looked the most interesting. If I ever make it back to Kanazawa and have enough time, I'd like to stop by the ones I didn't visit, regardless of how minor they may be. Here are some of the religious structures.

As evening approached and the chilliness set in, I decided to walk around the city to several of the ancient neighborhoods that have been preserved. With my paper map as a guide, decided to seek out both an old geisha neighborhood and a preserved samurai neighborhood. Of course it would have been easier had the map noted that towards the top wasn't north...but I eventually found my way to these areas of the city. I reached the Higashi Chaya Geisha District just after the sun had set.

By the time I made it to the Naga-machi Buke Yashiki Samurai District, it was completely dark out. The neighborhood was neatly preserved with the original walls samurai used to live behind lining the streets. I believe many of the samurai residences now are inhabited by wealthy families, but it was to fun to imagine being back in that time. The darkness helped mask details that would have otherwise ruined the fantasy.

So visit Kanazawa if you have a free weekend and just happen to be in the area. It's a great place to spend a day or two given its eclectic historical sites. With a famous garden, castle, temples, shrines, and old neighborhoods, you can't go wrong.

Chinese New Year

2009-01-25T19:28:00.024-05:00

"Xin Nian Kuai Le!" - Happy New Year!
"Gong Xi Fat Cai!" - Wishing You Good Fortune!

These are two phrases you'll frequently heard during the Chinese New Year, frequently called the Spring Festival (although this is pretty much as Winter as you can get) or Lunar New Year by the Chinese. This year the official new year is January 26th. The Chinese honor the Spring Festival as a week long period of celebration, although business are only closed usually the first two or three days. Here is a link with the details.

This year is the Year of the Ox. As you probably are aware, each year has one of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs, which cycle in order. The Ox is supposed to represent good fortune through hard work. Maybe something along the lines of "by increasing the intrinsic value of our company through hard work, we'll raise our stock price and pull the economy out of this recession." If the Year of the Ox is the cure, let our country have a recession once every 12 years (but warn me first so I can get out of and short the market). Chinese parents always ask your birth date because your Chinese Zodiac sign is supposed to reveal certain qualities about your personality and they want to know if you are astrologically a good match for their son or daughter. I think this is true of good friends as well as those in a relationship. For Chinese parents, knowing the Chinese Zodiac Sign of people close to your children is analogous to doctors asking what your siblings' blood types are. In case of an emergency (single son or daughter approaching the age of 30) its good to have someone compatible around.

I wish I had a crazy story about this Chinese New Years for you. Maybe something involving many different types of fire-crackers, a dancing dragon festival, exotic food, and maybe the telling of a traditional Chinese New Years story where everyone learns a moral and is better equipped to enter their fresh start in the New Year. But really all I did was eat in Chinatown and carry Chinese groceries around densely packed Chinatown streets.

Since Chinese New Years stimulates thoughts of all the different kinds of delectable treats enjoyed during childhood memories of the Spring Festival, I'll post some pictures of the food I enjoyed while in China. For a comprehensive look at what I ate while in China, you can check out my pictures on Flickr.

Here were some of the most memorable dishes.

Fresh Beef

Duck

Drunkin' Shrimp

Fresh Lotus Root

Clam and Cucumbers

Dumplings

Fish

Duck Tongue

Soft Rice Balls in Alcohol Sauce

Noodles, Tofu, and Assorted Vegetables

Stewed Lamb

Rice Cake with Red Bean

Roast Pork

And when it comes down to it, what holiday really isn't about the food?!

Nara, Japan

2009-01-24T00:40:00.018-05:00

Nara is where you go when you feel you've seen enough of Kyoto and want to get away from the city for a while. It's a stone's through away (less than an hour train ride) south of Kyoto. Like most cities visited by tourists in Japan, Nara is an ancient capital and military stronghold. Most people are drawn to Nara for the same reasons they are to Kyoto - to see its ancient temples, shrines, and sculptures.

I visited Nara on a rainy day in October. Needless to say there were not to many tourists, which was nice as I had the place pretty much to myself, but the deer were out in full force. Deer roam the temple grounds and aren't afraid of tourists.

The demeaner of the deer population reminded me of their cousins in Miyajima. Deer are not native to Japan and I'm not sure if they have any natural predators in to the areas they were introduced. Deer are believed to be spiritual creatures that embody the spirits of past deities and enlightened monks.

Like most place I traveled in Japan, my most valuable possession was the free paper map I picked up at the entrance to most temples. On this particularly day, I was shortly deprived of my map by hungry deer who thought it was food. I didn't even see it coming. One moment I was holding it at my side, and the next a deer had snatched it out of my hands and decided to share this apparently tasty snack with a friend.

Moving on, I visited the Todai-ji temple which houses Daibutsu, the largest Buddha statue in all of Japan.

Both the temple and the statue tower over you as you approach them. The temple grounds are very nice, but due to the rain, I was ducking for cover underneath the roofed walkway around the perimeter of the temple grounds.

I also had time to visit the Horyuji temple complex which has a lot of unique looking temples and shrines along a long wide dirt road.

I'm sure on most occasions this road is packed with tourists, but with the season being what it was and the rain, it was a solitary peaceful walk. The rain also seemed to make the temples appear with richer and deeper colors than they would have had it been bright and sunny.

If you are in the Kyoto/Osaka area and you feel you've exhausted yourself in these two cities (there's not much to see in Osaka anyway, I'd skip it all together) make your way to Nara.

Rob & Missa's Engagement

2009-01-19T20:05:00.009-05:00

When my cousin asked me to play a part in his engagement to his high school sweetheart on their 10th year anniversary I felt honored. Being asked to take part in a life changing event such as an engagement always makes you feel lucky, although I'm pretty sure the fact that we live a couple blocks away from each other has something to do with it. It all started when Rob called me up Wednesday night and said he wanted to talk about "something", and when he asked me to text him back a nonsense message when I was free and knowing that his 10 year anniversary was coming up, it was an obvious sign what he wanted to talk about.

Rob mentioned that he and Missa were going out for a romantic dinner on Friday night to celebrate their anniversary. Since it was the night of their anniversary, he wanted to propose at their apartment after dinner, aided by a thick front of commitment fear he had been displaying the past several weeks to stave off any suspicion (or expectation) and me. He asked me to decorate the apartment with roses, chocolate, candles, and champagne, all of which excluding the candles I was to procure while they were at dinner. He also mentioned that he knew that Missa would like pictures of the proposal and asked me to hide somewhere with my new camera to record his hopefully successful attempt to romance his girlfriend.

The day of, I met Rob after I got out of work who proceeded to give me the keys to his apartment and a detailed map he had drafted of his living room indicating where the candles and matches were. Later that evening, I was sent a message that dinner was starting which meant the apartment was vacant. I headed out to pick up the chocolate, roses, and champagne, and then to Rob's apartment. Phase one, complete.

Phase two, umm...flower arranging? I remember taking an exam in high school which was supposed to indicate your future career and along with hair dressing or staring in a Broadway musical, flower arranging was not a suitable result. The fact that they only had one vase which could only fit a single bouquet of roses when I had brought four was also complicated things. I figured I would scatter flowers around their apartment, maybe on the couch, or a trail leading from the doorway to the coffee table where the chocolate and vase of roses would be, but after lighting the candles I decided there wasn't enough light to appreciate or even see the roses. However, it did inspire me to create groupings of roses around the candles, since the candle light would illuminate the rose pedals in the dark.

I tried a couple different arrangements and placement of the candles always walking back to the door (Missa's entrance point) to see how it would look. After some trial I discovered that stacking the roses worked well as the top ones were very bright in the candle light. I also discovered that it looked better placing candles closer to the door further apart and candles further from the entry point closer looked better.

I also tried different arrangements of roses on the coffee table. I was able to force two bouquets into the vase. I placed the chocolate in front of the vase with candles flanking the chocolate arrangement. I then placed roses on top of the chocolate so she would have to dig through a mount of sweet smelling roses to get them. I also balanced roses on the front of the vase, under which there were candles so that their pedals were lit up from the candles underneath. Of course I was constantly checking the time on my cell phone worried I was working too slow, especially since I've never done this before.

The room was quite dark with just a few candles lit. I could hardly see anything and was hoping there was enough light for Rob to give the impression and convey the emotion he wanted to. It was also a great chance for me to try out my Canon 5D Mark II, whose full frame sensor is supposed to make it an excellent low-light shooting option. I took several pictures of my arrangement via candlelight (as you have seen above) and after the proposal I also took some more of Rob and Missa (she said yes by the way, congratulations!) bathed in the candle light.

I was shooting at 3200 ISO but the camera could see way better than I could. Amazing. I guess there is some noise, but nothing would have come out on my old compact. I was very lucky to have this occasion as my first chance to test some low light shooting, although you sort of had to be there to appreciate how dark the apartment really was.

Enjoy the pictures and CONGRATULATIONS ROB AND MISSA!!!

The Kyoto Festival

2009-01-15T00:10:00.007-05:00

The Kyoto Festival was my best time while traveling around Japan. Here's the story. I was making my way through Kyoto seeing the sights and ended up at the Heian Shrine as my last stop for the day. The Heian Shrine has a long wide street leading up to it and encloses an enormously wide square. Heading up to and around the shrine there were many groups of young Japanese people engaging in both traditional and street dance.

Here are some of the girls dancing. I founds this amusing for a number of reasons. First, as it was explained to me, this kind of group activity in Japan is thought of as wholesome, where in the US may come off trashy. Definitely a plus. Second, I assure you that the girls have no idea how dirty the lyrics are to the songs to which they are dancing. If they had any clue, they would definitely not be playing it in public, let alone at a city wide festival. Third, and most obviously, the girls aren't bad to look at.

After visiting the huge shrine and its beautiful landscape garden, everyone was being ushered out of the square and a stage was being set up. I realized today must be a special day because of all the festivities in the street leading up to the shrine and the erection of the stage, but couldn't identify the occasion. Additionally, I was the only foreigner around as the shrine officially closed an hour before and I stuck around to wonder the area. I tried to ask some of the locals why we were being asked to leave the square but only managed to under stand the words "Grand Finale" in the response. After noticing pylons and lines forming on the other side of the gate, I queued up and waited. After a while, the opened back up the gates to the Heian shrine and everyone flooded inwards to fill the square in front of the stage. After about an hour there definitely was a grand finale with all types of entertainment put on by teenagers in Kyoto. There was everything from traditional dancing to hip hop dancing, to a student rock band, to cheerleaders, to traditional drumming, to shrine celebrations... The show ended with a group dance from the entire crowd with the dancers from the show coming out into the crowd and dancing with the audience, 90% of whom was friends with the participants in the Grand Finale. The show was spectacular and I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to catch it. To this day, I still don't know what the reason was for the festival, but I'm guessing I was really lucky to be there. Here are some of my favorite acts from the night:

My favorite act of the whole show was the band (not surprisingly). I caught them doing the sound check (video on my Flickr) and in concert that night.

They also played a second song, which rocked too:

There were the McDonald's Dancers (yes a Japanese Roland McDonald and his sexy dance troupe...):

Then there was some J-HipHop Teenage Dance Group:

And the there were the cheerleaders:

If anyone is truly interested in seeing any of the drumming, traditional dance, or shrine ceremonies, I can post those clips too. Enjoy!

Canon 5D Mark II

2009-01-12T23:31:00.008-05:00

It's been a while since I've written a post, but its not been without reason. It's true that Sunday I attended the humiliating playoff defeat of the #1 seeded Giants against the #6 seeded division rival Eagles, but this is not what has kept me from writing. The culprit is my new Canon 5D Mark II.

I spend enough time traveling to exotic places for work and pleasure and taking pictures that I figured it was time to buckle down and cough up the dough for a real DSLR. I also thought I might have the chance to take a camera to the Giants game and actually reserved a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM Lens to take to the game, but decided against it due to weather conditions and the fear of not being allowed into the stadium with it.

I've been spending the past week reading through the manual at my leisure (about halfway done). I haven't taken it for a real test drive yet, but have taken some shots around my apartment and consider it a definite improvement above my compact G7. The main reason for this purchase was the full frame sensor in the medium sized (not large) body. I thought it was the only one until I read after my purchase that the Nikon D700 sports the same sized sensor and body (just about), but contains more than 4 times as many autofocus points and can shoot 5 pics/sec instead of 3.9/sec. On the other hand the Canon has almost twice the resolution (which means nothing when it comes to image quality) and can take full 1080P hd movies (which I could also care less about as I'm not going to carry this cannon around to take spontaneous videos). So....help me feel like I made the right decision here!

Ok, here are a couple of the snapshots I took while messing around with some of the settings.

My girlfriend suffering from an unfortunate nosebleed (I'm sure she appreciated having a camera stuck in her face during this...):

A fresh blueberry pie that was baked for me after a long day:

Red grapefruit, my favorite fruit:

Once I get through the manual, I'll take this thing for a real test run!

Great Wall of China

2009-01-09T00:12:00.007-05:00

I visited the Wall in March, which I figured was the off season. Wrong. The first quarter mile in either direction was more packed than the Manhattan subway during rush hour. And its a steep uphill climb to the ridge where the wall is. And it was cold and windy.

Yes, its a really long wall. You can walk along the top to your heart's content in either direction. It doesn't change much as you walk along it and neither does the scenery. Don't get me wrong (thanks Jason Farber) the Great Wall is impressive and you can't visit Beijing and skip the Great Wall without feeling regret, but after you're up there for about 15 minutes, you realize its just a really long wall that repeats itself every 10 feet.

People selling souvenir hats in the parking lot tell you its cold before going up, but after people trying to rip me off every place I visited in China (the Chinese call this the Curse of the Pale Suit - just kidding, totally made that name up) I was skeptical about how cold it would be a top a 25ft wall on the highest ridge in northern China.

In China, either you're with The Party (see the hat?), or you're quiet, and those who are quiet really aren't. The idea that the Great Wall of China is the only man made object that can be seen from space is a lie fabricated by the Communist party. It's in the Little Red Book. (Almost as exciting as my protest pictures in Tiān'ānmén Square - future post).

Kyoto - Temples & Shrines

2009-01-06T20:42:00.015-05:00

Kyoto. It's more of an enormous outdoor museum than a city. Most people visit Kyoto and find it impossible to visit everywhere of interest in a single trip. The city has many famous temples and shrines which you'll want to make a point of visiting, in addition to what I call "temple parks", walled neighborhoods containing streets lined with ancient temples and shrines in a single complex. Between strolling these neighborhoods and making a point to visit particular temples, shrines, and castles, you could easily eat up more time than you allocated to stay in Kyoto, and that's without visit actually museums, parks, shopping areas, and other attractions. Traveling alone, it was easier for me to see all the things I wanted to see than with a tour group, but I still had to keep myself moving and remind myself not to stare too long at the marvelous structures I visited. I dedicated a day to each section of the city - 1 day for the north, another for the east, and finally one for the west (there's not too much to see in the south). It would take too long (and would probably bore you) if I went over every place I visited in Kyoto, but if you'd like to see a comprehensive set of pictures, you can check out my Kyoto set on Flickr.

I visited many temples and shrines, most of which had landscape or rock gardens in addition to the temple its on the grounds. Kyoto involved a lot of map reading, even more walking, but also inspired feelings of awe in certain places. True, I enjoyed the lesser known attractions more as they are much less crowded and no less interesting. Still, when I saw famous temples like Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion) I had to take several minutes to just stand there and stare. Here are some highlights from my time visiting temples, shrines, and castles in Kyoto (you can find descriptions of these places on WikiTravel - Kyoto for details.).

Lanterns of the Yasaka shrine at night:

Kinkakuji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion):

Ryoan-ji Zen Rock Garden:

Niko Castle:

Bamboo Forest:

Heian Shrine:

Jingoji Landscape Garden:

Ginkakuji (Temple of the Silver Pavilion):

Ninnaji Temple:

Daitokuji Temple:

Valley of the Phoenix

2009-01-05T23:13:00.013-05:00

In China's Anhui province, not far from the famously scenic Yellow Mountain (Huang-shan) is a place known as the Valley of the Phoenix. This valley is a historic and protected treasure of China. Not only does it have great natural beauty with its turquoise rivers, bamboo forests, and breathtaking views of mountain from down within its notch, but it also contains several ancient and preserved Chinese villages untouched by the cultural and industrial revolutions. If you visit Huang-shan and stay a night at its base, this valley certainly demands some exploring. Both the valley and the ancient villages were filming locations for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

You can take a walking tour through the ancient villages. People still live there, and I'm not talking about people who reenact how people used to live for educational purposes. People still inhabit the village and sections of the village are closed off because they are private residences. I'm sure the tours do bring in some money, and yes, they do make and sell some souvenirs, but for the most part the people live a very simple life, growing vegetables, raising livestock, knitting textiles, wood working, and knitting textiles as a living. It's no wonder this pristine historic environment was selected for the movie. Here are some pictures I took while exploring the villages.

Here are some images from my excursion into the valley:

One of the most interesting things I came upon in the valley was a tablet which has the character for "Love" written 99 different ways in red, which represents happiness in Chinese. The 100th character is missing because we are supposed to express it with our own hearts.

Japanese Rock Gardens

2009-01-04T01:06:00.008-05:00

You know that old expression about drawing a line in the sand? Have you ever seen anyone actually do it? And then put it on display?! Well Japanese monks do this every day in Japanese rock gardens, sometimes known as Zen gardens.

Japanese rock gardens are gardens composed of not primarily plants and foliage, but sand, rocks and gravel. Sometimes other aspects are used to enhance the garden such as flowing water (sometimes with carp or catfish), moss, or a few plants, but the garden centers around the inanimate.

The garden is usually situated in a flat, shallow area into which no one is allowed to enter, except sometimes via stepping stones set solely for this purpose. The sand is raked in straight lines or waves and usually surrounds the other elements of the garden. Items in the garden are either adjusted or rearranged during the day only if they come into human contact, otherwise they are left to exist where nature desires them to be.

The best place to see Zen gardens in the world is in Kyoto, Japan, and I was just lucky enough to be able to visit there. The King of all rock gardens is the Karesansui garden in Ryōan-ji Temple in Kyoto. The temple grounds are beautiful, containing the temple itself, a landscape garden, and the famous Karesansui garden. Karesansui is 30 meters wide and 10 meters deep. A ledge along one of the sides of the temple runs in front of the rock garden, allowing you to enjoy views of the garden from many different angles. The garden contains 15 rocks floating in a sea of raked gravel. The catch is that no matter from which angle you view the garden, you can never see all the stones at the same time. The lesson is that we must learn to be content with what we have, for we can never have everything.

I visited several other beautiful rock gardens in Kyoto. Each one seems to engulf you in a peaceful, tranquil, and relaxed state of mind. Oddly enough, this is not their intention, as most Westerners believe. In the very early hours of the morning, the younger monks will come out into the garden and practice raking the sand and gravel, and arranging the rocks in a manner which conveys some deeper idea. After trying several arrangements, a senior monk will appear and arrange the garden just once in a far superior way, conveying a deeper message, than any of the arrangements the other monks thought of, but not reveal the idea to the younger monks.

This arrangement will remain untouched throughout the day as visitors enter and leave the temple. At the end of the day, the senior monk will ask the younger monks for their interpretations, and will finally reveal the concept behind the garden. I think I'll stick with just enjoying the garden's tranquility.

Yellow Mountain

2009-01-02T12:35:00.011-05:00

Yellow Mountain, or Hunag-shan in Chinese, a mountain famous for its beauty in China. Located in the southern tip of the Anhui province, you can reach the base of the mountain in a couple hours by rail from Shanghai. Huang-shan and its surrounding valleys definitely win the award for most beautiful natural place I've been in China (so far). The mountain, albeit ensconced in all its beauty, seems to be protected by nature as well. The mountain is steep, slipper, windy, and although the trails are sometimes constructed from cobblestone, and be treacherous. Hiking up the mountain from its base can take a very long time and can be dangerous. For visitors, there is always the option of taking a cable car half way up, but it doesn't go to the peak. You need to hike the rest of the way in windy and usually rainy weather. If you aren't in shape (or even if you are) your legs will most likely beg you for breaks and throw a tantrum of soreness the following day. On the other hand, without hiking the mountain, you'd miss all the beauty. You have to experience life in order you enjoy it. Here are some of the trails and paths which lead you up the mountain.

Who needs a stair master when you've got...

Winding along the cliff's edge:

Slipper narrow path through mountain face:

Either side, you die, and it's windy...and you can't see...

This one looks safer...

When trees attack!

You get the idea. It's a fun climb. The sights along the way to the peak are spectacular. I think I could stare at the trees all day long and not get tired of it. There is so much detail in their branches. Because the mountain is very foggy and misty, thin and jagged branches are always blanketed and easy to see. There is no distracting background to get in your way when trying to examine their bare branches making the branches themselves reveal their interesting textures.

Different shades of gray seem to both blend together and remain distinctly separate:

These two trees grew together since childhood to embrace each other in their branches. They represent inseparable lovers.

This little guy is doing his best to stretch off the side of the mountain. What do you think he's reaching for?

And when you finally reach the peak of the mountain, you find yourself swimming in an Ocean of Clouds. The clouds become fluid and seem to stretch between all the peaks of the mountain. It's a very tranquil atmostphere.

Himeji Castle

2009-01-01T23:33:00.009-05:00

While Kyoto, Kamakura, and Nikko boast their many beautiful ancient Japanese temples and shrines, you won't see many castles there. Many times we forget that temples and shrines are beautiful and peaceful places because they are intended to be that way. They are structures of spiritual and religious significance and are designed to invite inner peace to all who enter. Japanese castles, on the other hand, are built for military might and regional defense. Yet, somehow they also appear as delicate and graceful as many of the temples and shrines. The most impressive castle I saw (and arguably the must impressive castle in Japan) is Himeji. Perhaps this is why it was chosen as the filming location for The Last Samurai.

Sufficiently far from major cities such as Kyoto, Osaka, and Hiroshima, Himeji is its own stop on the bullet trains. The castle is about a 20 minute walk from the train station, but you can see it for a long while as you approach. This may lead you (as it led me) to believe that the castle is much smaller than it actually is. I figured it was about the size of a large temple, and could maybe fit at most 100 people under it's roof in a main hall or something similar. This was a gross under exaggeration.

The castle was enormous with a 50 foot solid rock wall as its base. The castle grounds had many buildings all connected through corridors and halls for defense. There are different sized holes and slits through exterior walls for defense. The shape of the opening denoted its purpose - triangle holes were for archers, and I don't remember what the circle and square holes were for.

It must have been Field Trip Day the day I visited Himeji because the only tourists there were me, and several hundred middle school and high school student tours. The students were all in uniform and were being lead around by tour guides carrying flags. There was no way I could escape. I was swept up into a sea of little uniformed people who seemed intent at staring at me every step of the way. I followed the flow of the crowd into a tour of the castle where we walked through every narrow wooden hallway and climbed several flights of steep, slippery, narrow wooden stairs until we reached the top floor of the castle. I would have to duck at ever opening because I was too tall, but the little students would race up the narrow steps beside me, stare and smile for a second, laugh when I had to duck and they didn't, and then continue on their way.

After exiting the castle and walking around the grounds a group of boys worked up the guts to practice their English with me. I noticed them standing around in a circle laughing while I walked by until one stepped out and said "Excuse me, you are cool" to which I quietly laughed and replied, "thank you, you are cool too." All the boys started laughing and I kept walking. Little did I know that the other places I would visit after Himeji (Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kanazawa, and Takayama) would be swarming with students also.

Himeji Castle does a great job of making you feel small, and making itself feel impenetrable. It towers above you when you are close and almost forbids you to look at of it at once. If you stand too close, all you can see it its mighty rock wall and solid foundation. No temple or shrine I visited exudes such physical fortitude and honestly it wasn't something I was expecting from a Japanese castle like I would a European one. It was certainly a highlight for me and would urge others to stop there as its the most impressive castle you'll see in Japan, is invitingly easy to reach, and takes less than half a day to see.

And yes...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Chinese Street Food

2008-12-26T12:00:00.018-05:00

If Japan is another world, China is a completely different universe (well, for someone from the West anyway). Maybe it's because China is on the opposite side of the globe from New York, but a lot of daily things I take for granted are the other way around in China. Example: Street food.

Pretty girl deciding on a snack.

In the US, it's much cheaper to go to the grocery store and cook your own meals than to eat outside regularly. Cooking at home can also take less time than going to a restaurant, ordering, waiting to be served, and paying the bill. I'm sure you've seen all those guides to frugility that suggest cooking at eating at home, or preparing your lunch ahead of time and bringing it instead of eating out. In China it's the opposite way. Buying food outside the home is usually much cheaper, takes less time, and is a cultural habit of China I think everyone should experiense.

Street full of food stalls.

Now when I talk about buying food outside, I'm not talking about ordering food (which is almost unheard of) or sitting down for a warm meal inside a restaurant. I'm talking about food that sold in carts or small stalls and shops along a crowded street. You can get almost any time of food cooks in almost any time of way whether it be grilled, boiled, fried, baked, sauteed, and of course, raw.

Street Sweets and Baked Goods

Most shops open around lunch time and stay open last until the night. One of my all time favorite dishes is from Beijing. It's a cold long flat rice noodle in vinegar sauce and it's available across the street from the enterance to Beijing University. You'll see many students enjoying this treat for lunch.

Beijing has one of the most developed night markets for food. In addition to the array of tastey conventional Chinese food usually sold on the street, The Beijing night market is famous for having some of the most bizarre foods you'll see. Here are some shots from my last trip there:

The Beijing night market is a great place to find some tastey meals, but my taste buds found a home in the Anhui province in central China. There I discovered a food called shao bing. This is a round thin bun of dough with either a salty or sweet filling (I prefer sweet) baked into the center. The catch is that the dough is stuck and baked in the inside of a barrel under which a fire is burning. The dough becomes soft and warm but surprisingly firm once it is ready. I think after tasting them one day, I bought 5 the next day and ate them right there. Yeah, my stomach hurt a little afterwards, but it was definitely worth it. These are probably the best street snack I have ever tasted.

Other street food in Anhui is surprisingly fresh and cooked in unique ways. Honestly, I didn't find all the food appetizing, but most Chinese would start salivating at the sight and smell of these foods. Here are some other treats I encountered in Anhui:

Dried Meat and Fish

Spicy Tofu

Boiled Corn

Baked Sweet Potatoes

Stir Fried River Snails in Spicy Sauce

Fried Dough

Fresh Sugar Cane

What looks good to you?!

Music

2008-12-23T19:32:00.017-05:00

Growing up in the mid-late 80s and early 90s, I had delusions of growing up to become many things influenced by that era...including a Jedi, a computer hacker, and of course, a long-hair rock guitarist. None of these career ambitions were fulfilled, not to much surprise, but the third took the longest to fade away. It all started with the classical piano lessons I dreaded each week. Most people are attracted to things they do well, and even though I was younger and could play better than my teacher's other students, I still was opposed to it.

Then third grade hit and it got worse. If there was one thing I detested more than practicing piano, it was the violin. Again, somehow I had some talent, but I went through teacher after teacher and year after year of music camp, always feeling forced to play the instruments.

Then one day it all changed. I got a little older and discovered friends playing electric and bass guitar with no formal training. They were starting to form the stereotypical high school garage bands and needed a keyboard player. I sat in a few times and realized because of all my formal training and marginal talent, I could be in a rock band. This completely changed my perspective. I started practicing a lot more, I asked my parents for Jazz piano lessons, I insisted that concentrating on two instruments would distract me from becoming better at one (which was really an excuse to stop taking violin lessons), and I was having a great time.

I started listening to different types of music. One band had a really unique sound - an electric distorted mandolin player was just ripping these amazing solos. After learning that the fingering on a mandolin was the same as a violin, I realized my years of violin lessons was not wasted either.

I made all county orchestra several times on violin and all county jazz band on piano. Then, to make a long story short, I went off to college and realized I didn't have enough time to take on two majors and lessons at the New England Conservatory. I also learned that I didn't have quite enough talent to become a professional. And then I did what everyone who didn't have enough talent to play an orchestral instrument did years before, like at the start of this story...got myself an electric guitar, well okay, two.

And the last time I played a real gig was summer 2008 at Michael's Wedding.

You'd think the story ends there, but it doesn't. There's a dark knight - my little brother, Jacob. For those of you who don't know how uncoordinated Jake is, he has trouble tying his shoelaces and can't pay attention to anything for more than a second and a half, but somehow he was better at the piano by 8 than I ever was, and now plays trombone too. I try to go to all his concerts because he's just phenomenal now. I'm not just saying that because he's my brother, or because I'm living my musician life vicariously through him (which I definitely am), or because he got full scholarships to a number of conservatories, or because he was the only amateur in a band full of professions at a famous resort this summer (aren't I humble?...), but because it just sounds so damn good.

Hiroshima

2008-12-19T11:04:00.021-05:00

Warning: This may not be the most uplifting of posts. If you're looking for something light, check out the post before this one.

Hiroshima, not unlike a heroine from a 1930s film noir, is beautiful with a disturbing past. It has a Venice-like ambiance with its many thin rivers, pedestrian bridges, trolleys, and sidewalk and riverside cafes lining its cobblestone streets. On the outside, this city presents itself as an elegant, refined, and modern damsel with a sweet smile and an inviting look. But what she's successfully hidden from you is the cold revolver in her purse and a heart filled with bitterness and revenge.

On Monday, August 6, 1945, an executive order was issued by President Harry Truman to attack the city of Hiroshima, Japan using nuclear warfare. To "limit damage", an atomic bomb was detonated at an elevation of 600 meters above the city's center. The intense heat and pressure of the nuclear blast devastated everything in a 3 mile radius and took 140,000 lives, mostly civilian. The deaths weren't instant or painless. The bomb melted skin off faces and limbs and left it hanging loosely as bodies struggled about during their last hours of life. Suffering was endured until death.

The aftermath was total devastation for both the city and its residents. Most building were destroyed. The foundation of one, now called the Atomic Bomb Dome, has been preserved and is one of the largest tourist attractions. The thousands that didn't die in the explosion did afterward as injury lead to blood loss and infection, and radiation poisoning set in.

Exposed to the A-bomb at the age of two, Sadako Sasaki contracted leukemia a decade later and died in 1955 at the age of 12. In the belief that folding 1000 cranes would cure her disease, Sadako folded on after another during her hospitalization. After her death, her classmates conducted prayer meetings to console the souls of all children killed by the bombing and, wishing for an end to war, started a movement to build a "Children's Peace Monument." The movement spread to elementary, junior high, and senior high schools around the country. The statue was completed in 1958. As Sadako's story spread throughout the world, paper cranes have become an international symbol of peace. At the foot of the Children's Peace Monument lies a continually replenished pile of folded cranes send from around the world.

To commemorate its loses, the city has tried to dedicate itself to spreading a message of peace. Peace Memorial Park has been designed to give a tranquil feeling to all those who enter. With its placid pool, eternal flame, and peace arch, the park welcomes all visitors to enjoy its peaceful presence.

Some other facts about the Hiroshima:

1) It has a street called Peace Boulevard, which is a long canopied shopping arcade and the hot spot of the city at night.

2) It has a beautiful ancient castle, which was restored after the bombing. I went to visit the castle as an attempt uplift myself after strolling through the depressing Atomic Bomb Museum, but got stopped on my way to the castle by a local who wanted to share his personal stories and opinions about nuclear war with me.

Flat Iron

2008-12-18T00:33:00.007-05:00

Ferris Bueller: Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Sometimes we don't always take the time to appreciate the small things. With current market conditions being what they are, I suddenly feel much luckier to have a job at an investment bank. I used to just focus on getting to work, getting my work done, and leaving at the end of the day. I hardly ever took the time to appreciate the neighborhood where I work, except during the spring when taking a quick walk around Madison Square Park is an easy way to extend your lunch. Although I have been walking past them blindly for the past 2 years, the neighborhood also has an excellent view of the Flat Iron building and the Empire State building. One freakishly warm day (66F) earlier in the week before a storm, the sky displayed a pastel sunset and I couldn't resist the opportunity to take some pictures.

One and Eleven Madison Avenue, the Credit-Suisse buildings:

The Flat Iron Building at sunset:

The Flat Iron Building at night:

The Empire State Building at sunset (view from 23rd & Broadway):

Jon's Apartment Warming

2008-12-13T23:40:00.010-05:00

What would you think if I titled a post after my brother's apartment warming but posted no pictures of his apartment? And now for something completely different...

1) Jon made Emily pancakes after losing a bet about the Giants beating the Eagles.

2) My kid sister decided to grow up without telling me.

3) The moon last night was the closest it's been to Earth in the past 15 years.

4) I spend way too much time on the computer.

Miyajima, Japan

2008-12-11T00:13:00.013-05:00

Most of Japan's beauty comes from man-made structures such as ancient Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, Zen rock and sand gardens, and flashy modern cities that could be from any futuristic science fiction novel. Although Japan does have national parks and gardens, and beautiful alps, I was hard pressed to find expansive natural beauty such as towering mountain ranges, roaring rivers, and vast plains. To be fair, though, Japan isn't know for large amounts of inhabitable land. The country is the size of California and has half the population of the US, but only 10% of the land is actually inhabitable. One of the exceptions is Miyajima, a small mountainous island off the coast of southern Japan about 45 minutes south of Hiroshima. Miyajima is considered one of the 3 most beautiful places in the whole country. Although its off the beaten path, its one of the places you must visit if you are ever in Japan.

Miyajima is famous for its Floating Torii gate. This huge torii gate has been constructed at the shore of the island. When the tide is out, its on solid land and you can even walk up to it and touch it. When the tide is in, its base is submerged and it appears to be a shrine floating on the sea. It is the main attraction of the island and can be seen by boat as you approach the island and observed up close after docking.

The island is covered with deer who aren't afraid to come up to you. They love being pet, but are really hoping to find food. One deer even decided to rummage through my backpack while I wasn't looking and attempted to drink from my close water bottle (yeah, that got thrown away). They'll follow you as you walk to the Floating Torii and the Itsukushima Shrine, the other main attraction of the island.

The Itsukushima Shrine is an ancient Shinto shrine directly behind the Floating Torii gate. It has long roofed pathways and corridors leading to different rooms where monks pray, burn incense, or house sculptures to ward off evil. The front most section of the shrine is elevated like a boardwalk and extends towards the gate. When the tide is in, this front section is surrounded by water acting almost as a pier.

After visiting the Itsukushima Shrine, you can walk around the island, eat local food, by trinkets, and see a few temples. You can also take a tram to the top of the mountain for a great view. Most people buy the round trip ticket and after enjoying the view, take the tram back down to the base of the mountain. I decided to hike my way down instead, which is much more fun, but not before attempting the mountain's peak.

Many old temples and shrines still remain in the mountains, and if you're up for some mountain climbing and hiking (which I usually am), you can make your way to these ancient mountain temples on your way to the peak. Some are embedded right in the mountain wall, or constructed out of caves naturally occurring in crevasses in the mountain. There is also a small river and some shines to see on the way down, including a breathtaking five story pagoda (five stories are very rare, three is much more common. So if you happen to make it to Japan for any reason, make the effort to take the out-of-the-way trip to Miyajima. It was definitely one of the highlights in my 6 weeks in the country.

David Juter Art

2008-12-07T23:59:00.018-05:00

There are benefits to having a friend who is an artist, for example mingling with the artistic elite at fancy art exhibitions as I did tonight. David Juter, close friend and professional artist, exhibited some of his recent pieces at a cozy wine bar in Brooklyn. Although I've walked past Abigail Cafe & Wine Bar several times, I've never actually be inside. Not knowing what to expect from a place on a tucked away Brooklyn street corner, the decor was warm and inviting.

Abigail attracts all types of locals. I spotted couples enjoying the evening with a few glasses of wine at the bar, graduate students studying for exams at single tables, and friends gathered around the larger tables having dinner. But tonight there was a fourth type of customer, those who came to attend Dave's art exhibition.

For anyone who hasn't seen Dave's art before, its quiet unique. They are described as "dream-landscapes", beautiful multidimensional paintings with bright and contrasting shades of color and texture. Dave paints his dream-landscapes on square or rectangular canvases with many layers of paint and acrylics, allowing deeper layers to expose themselves through the process. A single painting takes a couple weeks to create, but the end result is indescribably aesthetic.

Albeit being an artist, Dave is one of the most rational and balanced individuals I know, as his past of hobby of studying Tai Chi attests to. His range artwork also reflects this personality trait. In addition to creating pieces which explode with color he also creates works that demonstrate the beauty of the absence of color. Here the beauty is in the texture - the imperfections and shadows that white casts upon itself.

In fact, none of the images are smooth. Because each painting has several layers of paint, the surfaces of the paintings are three dimensional. The textures add another dimension of aesthetic beauty to his paintings. Now that I think about it, they add an infinite number of dimensions since the painting will look different for each angle an observer is standing. Now that's creativity!

So next time you're in Brooklyn stop by Abigail, or you're hankering for a new piece of art to hang around your home, consider one of Dave's custom Dream Landscapes as your new addition.

Ukulele : Jake Shimabukuro

2008-12-06T20:38:00.013-05:00

An indisputable fact: the ukulele is a stupid instrument, if you can even call it one. I knew some people who had ukuleles...when I was like 5. The only people who should be playing ukuleles are half naked Hawaiian belly dancers, especially since they all just want a good lei. Definition of a ukulele: the disappointing piece of junk your parents give you when you're a kid after you beg them for an electric guitar because you just saw a Metallica or Guns N' Roses video. Given, my definition of a ukulele may be dated since boy bands and American Idol winners can't play their own instruments. Yup, you must be a real chump to take a ukulele seriously, or so I thought.

About a month ago, I attended an all ukulele concert (why is another story) featuring four acts, headlining someone named Jake Shimabukuro. The first couple acts were what I expected - bands who use the ukulele to fill in chords in lieu of a rhythm guitar. One act was a solo act by a woman named Victoria Vox. She had a amazingly sweet singing voice and I was impressed by the clean sound she got out of her ukulele. I was surprised to learn that Victoria has an established following (not surprised because of her talent, which was incredible, but because I was ignorant to the fact that people play the ukulele seriously.) She even sang one song in French. (Please excuse the quality of my videos. I didn't have a camera with me, so these videos were all recorded on my puny Nokia E65 cell phone.)

With the exception of Victoria Vox and my friend's band (the reason I went and a topic reserved for a future post), I was pretty sure I could have made my $25 go further elsewhere. Then the featured solo act came out, Jake Shimabukuro. Now, the ukulele is a small four nylon stringed instrument. Who features them self playing it solo? Solo guitar acts are bad enough (hello John Mayer and Dave Matthews) unless you're a folk legend (Dylan, Simon), which is why I was completely blown away by Jake. This phenom made his four strings sound like an entire band. He opened with the national anthem in honor of our new President elect.

(Wouldn't it be mean if I left you hanging there? Ahh, bless Flickr and its 90 seconds of video rule...)

Next he played some amazing original pieces. Some were soft and melodious, and some just rocked. It feels funny typing that. How can a ukulele rock? Somehow, he made it happen. He played everything from a Bach prelude, to Chick Corea's Spain, to Michael Jackson.

He played pieces where he imitated the sound of different instruments. He made his ukulele sound like a old Japanese Biwa in one piece and a piano in another. Jake is just a phenomenal musician. He's definitely a prodigy at the ukulele. Interestingly enough, he told some jokes between songs and was very personable, and not introverted or reclusive like most prodigies are. Aside from the lighter stuff he played, like I said before, he could really make that instrument rock out. Here is one composition that really blew me away.

Shizuoka, Japan

2008-12-04T23:39:00.009-05:00

I can't think of any reason anyone would want to stop in Shizuoka. High lights of Shizuoka: It's almost halfway between Tokyo and Kyoto. It's kind of like stopping in Wilmington, Delaware if you were traveling from New York City to Washington, D.C. Yeah, not a really tourist spot and certainly not a hidden treasure. The one nice thing about the city is Sumpu Park, located in the middle of downtown. The park contains a historic castle albeit smaller and less impressive than those I visited later in my trip. It is a very peaceful place, but you probably won't find yourself there if you have a limited amount of time to spend in Japan.

The only reason I stopped in Shizuoka was because I have a childhood friend living there now teaching English in a local high school. Let's just say it's not a top school either. It's an industrial high school where must students go on to get jobs at local auto factories upon graduation (or sooner, which they consider lucky). Even my friend Jon admitted there's nothing much to do there and he'd prefer to live in Tokyo or Osaka rather than Shizuoka.

Being an English teacher and I a native English speaker, Jon thought it would be fun to bring me to the three classes he was teaching that day and do exercises with the kids in his class. He had me prepare a list of questions to ask the class, and afterwards the class would ask me some questions. My questions were simple "What is your favorite Japanese food?", "What do you like to do for fun?", "What is the most beautiful place in Japan?" (I don't think any of the students mentioned Shizuoka when I asked this question.) My favorite question was "What do you think about the US?", to which replies like "dirty", "smelly", "fat", "dangerous", and "angry".

Now remember when I said this was not an exemplary high school? Can you get what kind of questions they asked me? The benign ones were questions like "How old are you?" and "Where are you from?", which I made them guess. Then they asked me things like "Do you have a girlfriend?", "How many do you have?", "Is teacher your girlfriend?" (my friend was a student teacher for a class whose main teacher was a young Japanese girl around my age). And the questions eventually worked their way up to "How many times a day do you masturbate?", which Jon had to translate for me while expressing body language that it was an inappropriate question to the class. All and all an interesting experience. It pays to have friends in high (or in this case odd) places!

Out of FOCuS

2008-12-03T15:33:00.009-05:00

We all have desires - things we want to accomplish, places we want to go, ways we want to change ourself, things we want to own, people from whom we want admiration. It's unavoidable, we're human. Unless you've spent years mastering the art of Zen Buddhism, you've got desires. We might not be overwhelmingly conscience of them or their affects on our behavior, but in the long run, well all choose the path which leads towards fulfilling our desires.

We learn to control them, or perhaps get better at ignoring them (sometimes called patience), for short periods of time as we grow older. Last year I visited China and stayed with a family who has an adorable 3 year daughter.

I am the first foreigner she's ever met and with the intention of making a good first impression and being kind, I offered her some chocolate. Now, over a year later, when I am on the phone with her parents, she begs them to talk to me on the phone. I'm thrilled that she remembers me. I'm expecting her to say something cute and innocent like "hi" and hand the phone back to her parents or ask me about the game I thought up on the spot to play with her (rolling a ball into a cardboard box from across the room), which she loved. But this little girl has the act down perfectly. She tells me she misses me and asks when I will come visit her again in her sing-song tone. And then she reminds me to bring more chocolate.

I recently had the opportunity of working in Japan which provided me the chance travel extensively while I was there. I went to many beautiful place including ancient temples and shrines, some of the words most modern and interesting cities, beautiful natural landmarks such as famous shores and mountains, and many World Heritage sites. I found myself stricken with the desire to take beautiful pictures. I wanted to capture the beauty of all of these places so I could enjoy it later with friends and family. After a while, I felt more like a scientist than a traveler (or an amateur photographer), trying to capture the perfect sample with the tools and techniques I had available. I would wait around until people left the foreground of my photo, raise the camera attempting to crop them out, or return in the evening to try to get a photo with a sunset lit sky. My focus was on fulfilling the desire of getting the perfect photo.

And here-in lies the flaw: focusing on the result instead of on the process. Zen Buddhism provides us with an answer. For those of us who find it impractical spending years meditating and learning to let go of our desires, Zen Buddhists suggest focusing on the process rather than on the goal is much more effective. How you get there is more important than where you are going.

Of course, this is illustrated in the cult book Zen in the Art of Archery. The story is that Zen archers were the most highly skilled archers of their time by far. Their obvious goal was to pierce the bulls eye of a target with bow and arrow, but that's never what they focused on. To diminish emphasis on the target, they placed it several hundred meters away in a pitch black location. The only light was a single candle placed in front of the target. Even in such conditions, Zen archers could not only hit the bulls eye once, but again with a second arrow splitting the first arrow in twain. The secret was not to focus on the target, but on the process of shooting the arrow: the tension in the line, the rate at which the arrow was lowered in to position, the angle of sight along the arrow, the position of the cocked arm, and most importantly the stillness before the release. All these steps are more important that trying to aim for the bulls eye alone, and play a much greater role in the success of the archers.

Now when I'm trying to accomplish something like photography, I remember the lesson taught by these Zen Archers. I try to focus on shot composition and correct the camera settings instead of trying to force an immediate perfect picture. Are my shots any better? Debatable. I'm no pro, but I like to think so, but it's certainly a funner experience.

Focusing on a result ensures we revisit places we've already been. Instead, concentrating on the process leads leads to innovation, and perhaps a different result than we anticipated, but one we desire by the time we get there.

Pool

2008-12-03T15:33:00.008-05:00

Oddly enough, shooting pool is something I like to do in solitary; not because I don't enjoy playing with others or because I had a tragic pool-related childhood accident, but because its one of those things which helps me concentrate and focus, like running or playing music. Whenever I have something I need to reflect upon and figure out, the pool table is one of the places which pops into my mind. That's not to say I don't like the evening out with friends at Slate or in the East Village around a pool table as well.

I liked playing pool since I was young, and having a pool table at home, which I was forbidden to touch, made it all the more appealing. I think it was sometime in high school when my father didn't get all uptight and nervous when I was around it (imagine Cameron and his father's carefully restored 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California). I was never actually permitted to use it, but after getting caught playing on it and not getting severely yelled at, I figured it was all right to use.

I got pretty decent (as least among my group of friends) at pool. I enjoyed playing and knew on a good day I could pretty much take any them. One thing I was awful at was cards. My friends used to play weekly games of cards - different types of poker, acey ducey, you could offer to deal blackjack, etc. I think we had a loss limit of $20/night or something similar. I would usually lose pretty badly at any game of cards we played, but my friend had a pool table as well, and one slightly smaller than mine, which was easier to shoot on. So I knew that any money I lost at cards, I could usually win back at pool. Not a great strategy, but helped me stay somewhere near even and have a fun night with friends.

Throughout our years in high school, my brothers, sister, and I were notorious for throwing parties at my house while my parents were away. Once my friends spotted that we had a pool table, there's not much I could due to keep it covered and games would usually break out. At one of the earlier parties (being the oldest, I organized the first few) there was an incident. It might not come as such a surprise that there may have been alcohol at some of these parties. And if high school students with no real incomes were to somehow acquire it, it probably would not be of high quality, like say, 40oz malt liquor. When a bottle of such fluid may have found itself on its side, open, and pouring itself out on the felt of the pool table, I pretty much flipped. I think I went threw an entire roll of paper towels and was sure there'd be a huge stain. Surprisingly, the table dried fine the next morning, but that was a scary 12 hours.

I was watching speed pool in ESPN the other night (as I was trying to avoid watching a particular football game...more on this in another post, sometime). Those guys were SWEATING! Still, I'm not so sure that qualifies pool as a sport. Is it? I always get myself into these competitive activities which are on the verge of being a sport, but not definitively considered one. Track, for example. Throughout high school I would hear "cross country and track are just exercises...try a real sport, man..." Ok, so I'm not the most coordinated person in history, but I like to think I'm somewhat athletic. I don't see any way you can to defend pool as being a sport, no matter how fast you run or how much you sweat. I mean, if pool became a sport, what would that make speed chess or synchronized swimming? On the other hand, rifle, pistol, and shot gun shooting are all Olympic events and the participants barely move. If you had to guess, do you think a professional burns more energy playing in a day of a speed pool tournament or a round of golf. Wow. I'm boring myself just writing about this. Talk about something I'd like to avoid watching...

Welcome Back!

2008-12-03T15:31:00.001-05:00

So yes, I've decided to join the online community for real this time and start blogging. This is my attempt at creativity, which for someone who spends his days buried in equations and computers, is slightly out of character. For those who are wondering, yes, the inspiration for the blog's name comes from the Dream Theater album. The message is so simple and pure that I couldn't resist. That's all it is, Images and Words. Nothing less, nothing more. Read, comment, and enjoy!

Signing Off

2008-10-02T10:23:00.002-04:00

It's surprising how quickly these four weeks has gone by. Although I have worked much longer hours than I do in the States, I really did enjoy my time working in Japan. I was able to work much more closely with the traders than I do in New York, and focus on writing quantitative analytics that really make a difference to their P&L. I'll also miss the team I've a part of in Tokyo. They are a great group of people and have really helped me a lot in a country where I cannot speak a word of the local language. I sort of feel like I am losing part of a family, but then again, teams tend to be closer in Japan than in the States. The attachment is probably related to the number of work hours and the culture of the local country. Nonetheless, I do have some attachment to my team and the work I've been doing in Japan.

I am looking forward to backpacking around Japan for the next two weeks. I'll be visiting many places including Shizuoka, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Kanazawa, and Takayama, and will have to find my way to many train stations, hotels, and tourist sites. Hopefully I should be able to do so. I'll be without a computer, so this is my last post before returning to New York. However, I do promise to try to fill in the gaps, and post pictures after I return.

Thanks for reading and see you in a few weeks!

Tokyo Neighborhoods

2008-10-02T09:24:00.006-04:00

Tokyo is made up of many different neighborhoods, each with a different feel and style. During my 4 weeks here, I've been able to visit most of them. Here is my impression of a few.

Hibiya - Formly the center of old Edo, the Tokugawa shogun built the Imperial Palace here along with the stunning East Garden. Interestingly enough, this neighborhood also hosts a lot of modern businesses and you'll frequently see business men in their plain white short sleeve dress shirts and black pants rushing around the streets.

Ginza - Just think 5th Ave along Central Park south. Extremely expensive shopping area with each brand having its own uniquely shaped building.

Akihabara - Electric Town as it's called. Contains multi story buildings full of Japanese gadgets, computer parts, and electronics. If you wanted to build a robot, this is your one stop shop for the beams, wires, lights, computer chips, and modeling paint. It also contains stores that sell anything anime related - manga, anime, soundtracks, figurines, posters, accessories, shirts, mugs - you name it. It is also home to the Tokyo Anime Center. Yes - I have visited this neighborhood more than once.

Asakusa - Contains the famous Sensoji Temple. There are also several shrines surronding the famous temple as well as a large shopping market for trinkets, food, and other Japanese accessories. Feels like Old Tokyo.

Ueno - This area is basically Museum Park. Wide tree bordered cement walkways lead between different large museums, including the Tokyo National Museum. There is also a zoo in the area.

Shinjuku - Contains Tokyo's busiest train station and many skyscrapers. Also contains Kabukicho - Japan's largest red light district with countless bars, pachinko parlors (a casino game), love hotels (rooms you can rent by the hour), and a wide variety of red light establishments.

Shibuya - A busy neighborhood for younger people with a lot of shopping locations and that famous intersection with a countably infinite number of people crossing it at once. You know, the Times Square of Tokyo...it was in Lost in Translation (yeah, I turned it off after 45 mins also, but plan to watch it again once I get back home).

Harajuku - Pretty much THE place for alternative teens. You'll see all sorts of fashion here including some gothic, some maids, some cosplay, and some grunge. It contains thin streets (Omotesando Dori and Takeshita Dori), only accessable by pedestrians, with shops selling clothing of the latest fashion trends. It also contains Yoyogi park, a large park where many events are held, and the Meiji Jingu Shrine is located.

Aoyama - A street lined with places to shop and containing Omotesado Hills, an upsale mall with a unique interior design.

Odiaba - A futuristic man-made island with a view of the Rainbow Bridge and the Tokyo Tower. It has an observatory atop the Fuji TV building, a shopping center, and is home to many street performers. It also is the boarding location for a futuristic ferry which stops around Tokyo.

Roppongi - America Town. It's where white people live in Tokyo. There are many hostess clubs, and it home to Roppongi Hills, an gigantic expensive apartment complex with shops, restaurants, a garden, homes, apartments, offices, a museum, and a movie theater, where only rich foreigners can afford to live (no...not me). The Tokyo Tower is also in Roppongi.

There are some others, but these are the major ones.

TSE

2008-10-02T09:14:00.003-04:00

Today my team took a field trip to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Just as people in Japan are surprised to hear that the NYSE is now almost fully electronic with very few brokers left on the floor (as in many of the American movies they have seen), I was also surprised to see that the Japanese exchange was also lacking a large broker population. What I wasn't surprised by was how clean, neat, and modern the exchange looked. Last time I visited the NYSE, I recall large waist high mound of garbage in piles on the old wooden floor of the exchange. The TSE, on the other hand, is all glass, white walls, and electronic screens. Surrounding the exchange is large LCD hoop which displays revolving stock prices. The center of the exchange contains desks for the TOPIX, neatly arranged, and a large board of quotes and movements. The entire exchange sort of reminded me of the cockpit of the Enterprise or some equally futuristic space ship with a white rounded surface, bright lights, and an orderly interior. Besides that, the exchange was very quiet, and rather desolate. An interesting experience all together, and a welcome break from work.

Dinner with Kawano-san

2008-10-02T08:47:00.003-04:00

Unexpectedly, the managing director in charge of the interest rate research desk out here in Tokyo asked me to have dinner with me. It was an offer I couldn't refuse (imagine me saying that like Marlon Brando). He called a cab from outside the building and gave detailed instructions to the driver. The cab ride was quiet, but the one question he asked was "Have you tried Japanese sake yet?" - to which I answered "Not yet." I got a pretty good feeling for where the evening was headed at that moment.

The cab navigated a maze of winding streets around Tokyo before pulling into a small alleyway and stopping at a wooden door. Kawano-san paid the cab driver and we entered a small restaurant where the counter and bar took up most of the space. We said at a small table in a dimly lit corner and he suggested we start with some beer, to which I didn't protest. He quickly ordered a bunch of food off the menu and it slowly trickled in. We ate a bit and after the beer he shot me a thin smile and called the waitress over. She returned with a bulbus flash of clear liquid and two shot glasses. Kawano-san poured us both a full glass, we toasted, and the fun began.

The sake, which was served cold, contrary to Japanese restaurants in the States, was surprisingly smooth. I felt pretty good after the first few glasses and was determined not to let the skinny researcher out drink me. Through out the night we made small talk, learning about each other's educations, careers, backgrounds, and families. The food was also fantastic. One dish was a soft cooked tomatoe in tea, which was bursting with flavor. Another was sashimi, cut so thin that it was transparent. I didn't even notice it on the plate at first. It's eaten by placing the thin stalk of a vegatable in the middle and rolling the sashimi around it. There were other dishes as well, but by this time, we gone through our second bottle of sake. He explained to me that the most expensive sake has a fruiter taste, while this one is smooth and cool. He said he preferred it better. He also mentioned that his favorite food to eat with sake was soft grilled sardines, which we had to order. The sake did turn out to be stronger than I had first estimated. It was halfway through the second bottle that I realized Kawano-san had a lot more experience than me with the drink. I had to try pretty hard to keep from smiling widely and tilting my head, as I usually do after several drinks.

After all the food and drink was consumed, we sat for a minute, and Kawano-san announced it was time to depart. He refused to let me pay for my part of the mean, for which I thanked him, and I caught a cab back to the office, from where I could walk home in a matter of minutes.

Rain in Eden

2008-09-29T23:27:00.008-04:00

Saturday night I went to "Cat's Cradle", a club in the Waseda neighborhood of Tokyo, where Kelly's (a friend from work) band was playing a show. The club was something out of the East Village, with Arabic/Arabian/Persian decor, an old 1970s subway map of New York on the wall, and one of the walls lined with old books in Japanese and English. The venue was small and dim, but with a cozy atmosphere. The live music fit the environment well. The featured acts were:

Mokyo Octet (Oud, Tabla, Violin and Percussion) a great ethno-jazz improvisation band.
Rolling Hill: Psychedelic electric guitar and ethnic beats mixing the best of 70's psychedelic influences with modern ethno-fusion music.
RainInEden (Kelly's group): Silk Road inspired fusion of ethnic acoustic instruments and electronic music. Influences of Sufi, Persian, Edo era Japanese and Han music.

Since the lounge was small, the first row (where me and some friends sat) was a few feet from the musicians. The surprise came when two Japanese belly dancers accompanied the musicians for several of the songs, dancing in the space between the audience and the band. The dancers were:

Uran: Lead dancer of Gypsy Sadika and one of Tokyo's best Gypsy inspired dancers.
Elissa: A rising belly dance instructor and dancer.

Along with the music, our 1000 yen cover charge permitted a free drink. The problem: the aging laminated drink list on the small wooden bar was in Japanese. We decided to pick random drinks from the list, hoping they wouldn't be too strange. We ended up with a glass of red wine, whiskey on the rocks, and a mixed drink containing lychee flavored alcohol and grapefruit juice, which was by far the best drink of the evening and went well with the music.

The evening was powerful but soothing as the music and dancers performed in the dim light. Overall, the mix of middle eastern music and dance in a small lounge resembling a Greenwich Village pub, was not something I expected to find in Tokyo, but certainly added a new ethnic flavor to my trip.

Conveyor Belt Sushi

2008-09-25T09:07:00.004-04:00

What's a thousand different colors, is eaten by many people at the same time, and revolves? Conveyor Belt Sushi! Yes, I was skeptical at the idea. Sushi....out in the open....in front of strangers...who knows how long each piece has been on its journey...but it turned out to be a great experience.

First thing to note is that the conveyor belt doesn't go into a back room or out of sight at any time. Second, it rotates around the sushi chefs who prepare the fish in front of you. Third, the chefs keep their eyes on the sushi as it passes them, and if it they recognize it's been out too long, they dispose of it. Fourth, you never have to take anything from the conveyor belt. You can order sushi directly from the chef behind the counter. They'll prepare it for you on the spot and hand it to you. And fifth, the belt is elevated so you aren't breathing on top of the dishes as they pass.

The belt is thin and only supports a single line of small round plates. Each plate is a different color indicating the price of morsel. You stack the plates on top of each other, and after you're done eating, someone comes around to sum up the cost of your meal and hands you a check that you take to a cashier behind a register. Another interesting thing to note is that each spot at the counter has its own supply of ginger, a tea mug, a canister of powdered tea, and a self-service spout which dispenses hot water for the tea. I was pretty sure the green powder was ground up wasabi and my coworkers were playing a joke on me, but it turned out to be smooth tasting green tea.

S Word

2008-09-23T08:36:00.013-04:00

I went to the Tokyo Sword Museum today (no, not the s-word museum...I wonder what that would even...nevermind...). All I have to say is that trying to find it is half of the fun. I wasn't able to find directions to it anywhere, except for a street address and the name of a neighborhood, which, in Tokyo, is like telling someone "yeah, its a white building in Soho", since streets (except for major one) don't have names and buildings don't have numbers (which sort of makes me wonder how people get mail).

I found myself wondering around narrow residential streets bordered with run down apartment buildings for about 90 minutes. I showed people the street address I was trying to find, but that was futile. Eventually, I went into a tiny landromat and showed an attendant the address. He took a few minutes to talk to another attendant, who then pulled out a telephone book of street maps for his neighborhood. He eventually found the building I was looking for (because he recognized the English word "museum" when I said it) and drew a map on a piece of paper of how to get there. I also asked him to write the museum's name in Japanese in case I had to show it to anyone else.

The map turned out to be pretty good and I found my way to the museum which was embedded in a large residental neighborhood of narrow winding streets. Now, when I say museum, what I actually mean is "the second floor of a tiny building that could have been a local neighborhood dentist's office." Yes, the museum was really a room no bigger than an average Manhattan one bedroom apartment with sword blades behind glass. The blades, however, were magnificent, sometimes with engravings on the blade itself or on the section which is inserted into the handle. Most blades were from the 13th and 14th centuries, but there was no way you could tell. Each looked brand new polished pieces of iron with mirror like reflections and light glinting off along the edges. Here are the types of blades they had on display:

1. Tachi: From the Heian through the earily part of the Muromachi period, swords were worn slung from a cord tied around the hip. Tachi usually have a high curvature and were usually between 65 and 70cm long. (Think Jubei Kibagami from Ninja Scroll)

2. Katana: Replaced the Tachi in the middle of the Muromachi period and was in use until the end of the Edo period. They were 60.6cm long or more, but usually shorter and thicker than tachi. Unlike to the tachi, a katana was worn stuck in the waist sash with its edge facing up. Katana also includes swords that were originally tachi but shortend by suriage, and swords produced in the Shinto period in the Hizen province, and some in the Shin-shinto period at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, were formed in the tachi style. (Think Rurouni Kenshin, or Mugen and Jin from Samurai Champloo)

3. Wakizashi: Swords in lengths between 30.3 cm and 60.6 cm are called wakizashi, and were worn on the waist like katana. Those that are fairly short around 36-40cm are called ko-wakizashi. During the Monoyama and the ensuing Edo period, a wakizashi was worn with a katana as a dai-sho (a pair of large and small swords). (Think Yojimbo from Final Fantasy X)

4. Tanto: Swords shorter than 30.3cm are called tanto. (Think Kagero from Ninja Scroll).

To prevent the swords from bending and breaking, they are created using as many as 15 layers of hammered steel, each with decreasing carbon content. There was a whole lot more information about the forging of swords, the cleaning process, how to draw them and insert them properly into the sheaths, and most interestingly, how the curvature, thickness, length, and style of each sword changed with each passing era of Japanese history.

There was no Hattori Hanzo steel.

ill communication

2008-09-23T08:09:00.004-04:00

Today I had my first successful conversation with someone in Japan that speaks absolutely no English at all. And this wasn't an "excuse me, could I have the time" conversation, it was a full half hour chat over dinner. The catch: it was in Mandarin, not Japanese. I caught the owners of the small ramen shop outside my apartment where I eat pretty much every night due to the long work hours speaking Mandarin behind the counter. I thought I heard it once before, but I wasn't sure. One of the owners came out from behind the counter and continued to make dumplings using the seat next to me as a work area. I asked what kind of dumplings she was making, but in Chinese, and that opened up a whole new world of communication. We talked about a wide range of things, from food to travel, to work, to our backgrounds, etc. Even if it wasn't in Japanese, it felt good to communicate with someone in Asia speaking an Asian language, and assured me that my Mandarin wasn't too rusty.

Send My Rhymes Out To All Nations
Like Ma Bell, I've Got The Ill Communications

Nikko

2008-09-21T10:44:00.008-04:00

Today's adventure was Nikko, the former living and current resting place of many members of the Tokogawa family, who ruled as the shoguns of Japan in the 1600s for about 250 years. The forest moon of Endor, err, I mean, forest village of Nikko (it definitely reminded me of Endor) contains some of the oldest, largest, and well preserved Japanese ruines. After a long subway ride, a much longer train ride (2.5 hours to the end of the line), and then a half hour walk, I found myself among a dense army of cedar trees. The first landmark you see when approaching Nikko is the Shinkyo (Sacred) Bridge built in 1636 spanning the Diyagawa River, which only the shogun is allowed to cross. Everyone else must walk along the car causeway, a couple meters away. Unless you pay 500 yen. For 500 yen, the shogun doesn't mind.

It was a rainy day, which at first I thought was unfortunately. But with the sky dark and the air damn, many of the natural colors of the decorations on the temples and shrines seemed to glow. The moss, which has carpeted everything from 510 year old trees to ancient pillars for lanterns seemed to luminesce.

After exploring a carefully arranged landscape garden, I made my way to the center of the park where the Toshogu Shrine is located. This wasn't just a shrine, it was more like a little village of temples. After entering an expansive torii gate, you are greeted by a 5 story pagoda.

If you continue up the stairs past the pagoda, you enter an ancient gate (Japanese gates aren't gates at all in our sense, they are roofed structures housing statues and large doors that part letting people enter). On the other side of the gate ia a "Z" shaped road with large temples on either side of it, one being the Kami-Jinko, which has a carving of what elephants were thought to look like (I ain't neva seen an elephant fly!).

Across from it is the wooden Sacred Stable with the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" monkeys carved into the side. Continuing up another set of stairs is the Yomeimon Gate - a huge black and gold gate with so many intricate carvings and paintings of dragons, it was impossible to take all of it in. Just overwhelming.

Through the gate is the shrine's main temple, the Hai-den. You are allowed inside, but only if you take off your shoes, leave your umbrella outside, and don't take any photographs. This behavior was also requested at many of the other shrines in the area as well. After visiting the Toshogu Shrine, I also had time for the Futarasan Shrine (a shrine to the mountains, built in 1617) and the Taiyuin (not Tatooine) Mausoleum (the tomb of Iemitsu, the 3rd Tokogawa shogun).

Tokyo Tower

2008-09-20T08:52:00.007-04:00

I walked to the Tokyo Tower tonight. The view approaching it pretty impressive with orange and white lights accenting the same color beams, although very similar to the Eiffel Tower, and like most things in Japan, smaller. If I was Spiderman, I wouldn't have had to wait on the ticket line for the observatory. The view from outside is probably more impressive than the view from inside. I think my office building has a better view of Tokyo than the Tower. But once I looked around, I realized who was really there - couples or groups of girls. People really aren't there for the view, but for the atmosphere and every couple in Tokyo or singles girls longing for that feeling seems to know that. I thought for a second about why single guys didn't go there if there were single girls there who seemed to want someone, but then I realized only guys like me who are new to Tokyo unwittingly go there alone. And when I say guys like me, I mean guys who would have a definite language barrier with the girls there. I could walk up to a girl there and lay some of my best lines on her, but it might be almost comical (imagine someone walking up to you with a smile and then "muwahagonfuwalashmuzer" coming out of their mouth). I could have gone up to the Special Observatory to see if the view was any better, but I figured I'd save that for someone special.

Kamakura

2008-09-20T05:07:00.009-04:00

I found my way to Kamakura today. Kamakura is a village enclosed by wooded mountains and filled with shrines, temples, historic and wooden homes. Most were constructed by the followers of Yorimoto Minamoto, who seized political power in 1192 setting up his own shogunate far away from Kyoto, which then housed the believed to be corrupt government.

I arrived in Kamakura station and had to find the correct bus which would take me to the first set of historic attractions. After making eye contact with several bus drivers and pointing to the cover of my guide book, which had a picture of one the statues I wanted to see, I eventually found the right bus. I sat close to the driver so he could indicate which stop was mine. We drive through narrow village streets sandwiched with small food and antique shops and old homes. I departed at my stop and noticed a sign with a silhouette of my destination - Diabutsu.

Diabutsu, or the Great Buddha, is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. It's located in the Kotouin Temple, and measures 37 feet tall and 93 tons of bronze. There's no appetizer for it. You enter a gate, and there it is standing right in front of you. I took many pictures of him, but none do it justice. With not many tourist during this season, you can walk right up to it, and trying to take it all in overwhelms you. It's backdrop is green hills and today, a marble sky. It's green austere body and face tell its story without words. It was lived in a temple, but a huge tidal wave destroy the wooden structure, and so it has sat under the sun, snow and rain ever since.

The next stop was a 10-minute walk away: the Hase Kannon Temple. This temple was constructed up on a hill, but to get there, you have to climb several levels of Japanese landscape gardens. Again, I took several pictures, many of which came out well, but nothing that can compare to the serene feeling your mind adds when standing in a carefully orchestrated symphony of plants, flowers, small streams, large fish, small waterfalls, and stepping stones. The second level up was dedicated to ancestral memory.

There was a garden of thousands of 8-inch statues of people surrounding a larger statue of a man looking over them. I wish I knew more about the history behind them, but it was impressive none the less. There was a pool in the shape of the Buddhist swastika (not to be confused with the Nazi swastika, its mirror image, which still throws me off). After a few more shrines and a large roofed cauldron of incense, I ascended to the Temple - a large, symmetrically constructed...well I'll post pictures later.

From the temple you can see most of Kamakura, the sea, and the crescent shaped shoreline and beach in between. There are several very impressive towering golden Buddha statues inside, including Amida, created for Minamoto's 42nd birthday, but like most temple Buddhas, no pictures were allowed. There was also Kyozo, a 12-ft tall rotating wooden sculpture, which is supposed to be lucky, and the Benten-kutso Cave, which is a passage through the hills which different chambers, each having details carvings in their stone walls.

Next I tool the Enoden Line, a sort of trolley, back to Kamakura station so I could take another 10-minute walk to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine (got lost on the way by exiting out the wrong side of the station, but don't tell anyone ;-). This has to be the most impressive shrine I've seen so far. There's a large torii gate and ancient bridge which leads to a walkway with gardens on either side. You approach a temple like structure, which I at first thought was the shrine, but as I got closer the Tsurugoka rose from behind, revealing its self halfway up the hill behind the first shrine. I climbed up the stone stairs to the shrine to find you couldn't go too far into the temple as there are Buddhist services being held inside.

After walking around the shrine, I ventured into the gardens I passed along the way. The gardens included schools of thin bamboo poles, each with a vertical white flag with black writing tied to it. Again, not sure what it was for, but it certainly seemed to fit.

FYI

2008-09-20T04:42:00.003-04:00

All this traveling by myself in places where I don't speak the language has made me really good at reading maps. Subway maps, rail maps, street maps, you name it. No "getting my bearings" or "finding a landmark", now its all "two streets down, under the bridge, left at the bus stop, under the tunnel, and right at the 3rd light" from one glance at a billboard map with a "you are here" icon. Just thought I'd let you know...that'll happen to you when it's all you have to rely on.

I know many of you have been asking for pictures. I do have a lot and I want to pick out some good ones to post, but with the ancient laptop my company gave me, loading one 4mb image from the camera takes like 10 minutes, so looks like you'll have to wait until I get back to the States. Although, I do promise an extensive and detailed account of my trip on Flickr, and will probably add some images to the blog posts here.

Odds & Ends

2008-09-18T09:57:00.005-04:00

I caught Ninja Warrior on TV here in Japan. It's about the same as in the US. No, scratch that, it's exactly the same as in the US. They cut to commercials in the middle of someone's run. I think that's different, and they spend a lot more time talking about the back stories of each contestant.

Japanese bathrooms are so advanced...in the wrong ways. Their toilet seats heat up (in case you need muscle therapy while going to the bathroom, I guess?), spray water if you want, and have a whole set of buttons along the side that I haven't dared to touch. They have perfected the autoflush sensor for their urinals, but they thought it unnecessary to put the urinals sufficiantly far from each other or put partitions between them. I've found the perfect speed to walk in front of them so they all flush as I walk by.

I'm so used to see Asian movies dubbed over in English with awful lip synching. You know, like all those old Kung Fu and Samurai movies. It's so weird to turn on the TV and see Arnold Schwarzenegger's mouth moving and hear a deep Japanese voice behind it with the mouth movements all off. It catches you off guard at first.

Japanese people use a LOT of words to describe very small things. For example, when you go into a store in the US you're lucky if the cashier even speaks English, let alone acknolwedge that you exist. In Japan, when you buy ANYTHING, the cashier will name every item you've selected, repeat the cost of each item, tell you how much money you gave them, and tell you how much your change is, before handing you your change, and presenting you with a bag full of the neatly arranged items you've just purchased.

Japanese hostesses greet you when LEAVING the restaurant. This makes leaving very awkward. They say a whole lot of words while I'm trying to leave, and I'm not sure whether to just walk out, close the door slowly to see if they will finish before I shut the door, wait for them to finish their speech, etc. I usually just look at them a smile, hoping they'll finish soon so I can get out. I wonder what they are thinking. Probably not "this is the 12th goddamn time today I've had to smile and say this whole speech while someone I'll probably never see again exits my store..."

Japanese game shows - I can't even explain them. All I know is that there are lots of flashing neon lights and colors, the hosts appear to be competing in a smiling contest, and there's guaranteed to be a silly sound affect ever 5 seconds. The contestants are always celebrities, and they always get hurt. I don't mean they get slime dumped on them, or they fall into a pit of balls. I mean they get f-ing HURT. Like a guy will take a plastic mallot and slam a girl in the head with it full force. Or one girl will take thin string and wrap it around another girl until her circulation is cut off. Or one guy will take metal clamps and place them on a girl in selected places to see how long she can take it. Oh, and there's no winner. No one wins in the end. There's no objective of the game show. That's it.

TV infomericals are always always always for hair products. Hair dye, hair straightener, make your hair wavy...it's always hair. No knifes that cut through shoes, no vacuums that suck up water, no slicer that makes perfectly sliced potatoes, carrots, and eggs, no bag that seals so tightly that....well, you get the idea. It's hair or nothing.

One last one....we have dollar stores, they have 100 Yen stores. Go figure.