First off,
I'm in the process of
making this look like a real page, so please pardon the random, blank
crap you might come across. Stuff will be there eventually, I
promise. Godzilla is on vacation.
Anyway, now I've had a chance to dig around in this place a bit and take some photos...
Here's
a house I pass every day on the way to the train. I'd take a
picture of the inside, but I'm not about to climb on these people's
fence just to get a shot of their back yard. Suffice to say, you
see a lot of this kind of elaborate traditionalism scattered amongst
the more modern stuff (click the picture to open the full sized
version.)
...and here's a
little girl practicing her
unicycle immediately across the street from the above house. I
tried this once. I shan't try it again. She's already
better
than me.
This is a temple
(I think) I pass a few minutes later. This isn't in the country.
This is right smack downtown, a few yards from this
place. I haven't dared go in, but I'm hoping I can convince
someone who knows what's going on to accompany me inside one of these
days (click for bigger photo.)
Public transportation is readily available, if not
always as
dignified as one may wish. I have yet to travel in one of these
things.
Yes, that cat is everywhere. No, I'm not going to photograph it every time I see it (click for bigger picture.)
Heh (click.)
My friend Cait and I (she's from Ireland) went to the Imperial Palace in the middle of Downtown Tokyo, which is surreal, to say the least. This site has been the location of the Emperor's palace since Tokyo was called Edo (and long before that as well.) So it's this huge, sprawling, immaculately maintained area in the middle of one of the biggest, most populated cities in the World. As you can see in some of the pictures below, there are skyscrapers visible in the background everywhere you look. Pretty odd when you're looking at ancient history.
This is as close to
the actual palace itself as the likes of me can actually get.
Which is probably just as well (click for bigger pic.)
This is a
composite shot made up of five seperate pictures (notice the woman with
the umbrella appears three times.) This is the entrance to the
East Gardens of the palace, which is where all the, uh, "action" is
(click for enormous photo.)
The entrance to one
of the former staff houses for the palace. Unfortunately, this
was about as close as I could get, but I did expect Toshiro Mifune to
jump out with a sword at any moment (click for...yadda yadda yadda.)
Twinkie Man makes a
belated appearance here in front of a lake that looks like it was
tailor made for a postcard. I probably should have taken one of
these shots without Twinkie Man, considering how picturesque it is, but
I was really, really hungry. There are no restaurants on Imperial
Palace grounds. Hence, I was impatient and hungry, and you get
Twinkie Man. There's probably something ironic in there, but I'm
not going to think about it too hard (click for a big ol' photo.)
Here's Cait standing on what I'm assuming is a
lookout. You can see the entire East Gardens from here, but you
have to stop halfway up the hill to look, otherwise your view is
obscured. Since you can't actually see the palace from there, I
have no
idea what purpose this hill served (click for bigger...)
Here's another composite shot, this one of the entire
view from about halfway up the hill. Yep, that's Tokyo in the
background (click for a really, really big photo.)
Anyway, now I've had a chance to dig around in this place a bit and take some photos...
Here's
a house I pass every day on the way to the train. I'd take a
picture of the inside, but I'm not about to climb on these people's
fence just to get a shot of their back yard. Suffice to say, you
see a lot of this kind of elaborate traditionalism scattered amongst
the more modern stuff (click the picture to open the full sized
version.)...and here's a
little girl practicing her
unicycle immediately across the street from the above house. I
tried this once. I shan't try it again. She's already
better
than me.This is a temple
(I think) I pass a few minutes later. This isn't in the country.
This is right smack downtown, a few yards from this
place. I haven't dared go in, but I'm hoping I can convince
someone who knows what's going on to accompany me inside one of these
days (click for bigger photo.)Public transportation is readily available, if not
always as
dignified as one may wish. I have yet to travel in one of these
things.Yes, that cat is everywhere. No, I'm not going to photograph it every time I see it (click for bigger picture.)
Heh (click.)My friend Cait and I (she's from Ireland) went to the Imperial Palace in the middle of Downtown Tokyo, which is surreal, to say the least. This site has been the location of the Emperor's palace since Tokyo was called Edo (and long before that as well.) So it's this huge, sprawling, immaculately maintained area in the middle of one of the biggest, most populated cities in the World. As you can see in some of the pictures below, there are skyscrapers visible in the background everywhere you look. Pretty odd when you're looking at ancient history.
This is as close to
the actual palace itself as the likes of me can actually get.
Which is probably just as well (click for bigger pic.)
This is a
composite shot made up of five seperate pictures (notice the woman with
the umbrella appears three times.) This is the entrance to the
East Gardens of the palace, which is where all the, uh, "action" is
(click for enormous photo.)The entrance to one
of the former staff houses for the palace. Unfortunately, this
was about as close as I could get, but I did expect Toshiro Mifune to
jump out with a sword at any moment (click for...yadda yadda yadda.)
Twinkie Man makes a
belated appearance here in front of a lake that looks like it was
tailor made for a postcard. I probably should have taken one of
these shots without Twinkie Man, considering how picturesque it is, but
I was really, really hungry. There are no restaurants on Imperial
Palace grounds. Hence, I was impatient and hungry, and you get
Twinkie Man. There's probably something ironic in there, but I'm
not going to think about it too hard (click for a big ol' photo.)
Here's Cait standing on what I'm assuming is a
lookout. You can see the entire East Gardens from here, but you
have to stop halfway up the hill to look, otherwise your view is
obscured. Since you can't actually see the palace from there, I
have no
idea what purpose this hill served (click for bigger...)
Here's another composite shot, this one of the entire
view from about halfway up the hill. Yep, that's Tokyo in the
background (click for a really, really big photo.)Oh yes, almost forgot...
Sakura (cherry) blossoms. They only last two weeks, but...
This is a playground next door to my apartment.
(Another composite shot, click for a really big pic.)
Sakura (cherry) blossoms. They only last two weeks, but...
This is a playground next door to my apartment.
(Another composite shot, click for a really big pic.)
Well, that's
the report for the
moment. Saw a lot of amazing stuff (and some not so amazing...the Apple
Store in Ginza is kinda cool, but much smaller than I thoughgt it would
be.) I'm slowly settling in here, and I'll be issuing more
reports in the future, which will most likely be considerably more
snide, since I won't be looking at stuff like this all week. Kind
of hard to be cynical when you walk around this kind
of thing for
ten days.