Tokyo Weekend Part One (lots of ships)

This past weekend was a busy one as we made back-to-back trips to Tokyo for the day. I decided I would transform into tourist mode and capture some non car shots for a change. I ended up shooting a ton of pictures over the weekend so I will divide this up into two posts. Anyways, let’s start with Saturday.

First up was a trip on the Tokyo Metro Ginza line from Ueno to Asakusa. Above Tokyo is a maze of railroad lines and under Tokyo is a maze of subway lines.

Cabs lined up in Asakusa.

Our destination was the Tokyo Big Sight down in the harbor area, but instead of taking the train all the way we hooked a ride on the “water bus” for a cruise down the Sumida river and into Tokyo bay.

The Asahi building. If you can’t tell by looking at their building, Asahi is one of the biggest names in Japanese beer.

Cool scene along the Sumida riverfront.

Here we are passing under one of the many bridges along the way. Most of them are low enough where they will tell you to “watch your head” as the boat passes under them. Being 6′2″ makes it even more exciting.

Even though it was a Saturday, there was plenty of commercial traffic on the river.

Another day on the job.

Ferry heading back up the river towards Asakusa.

Playing in the wake of the ferry.

Fishermen gathering under a bridge.

Hustle and bustle.

Stacked.

It was a pretty windy day, and you could tell by looking at the water.

ANA 747 on final to Haneda Airport through the haze.

Tokyo.

Cool “bow art”.

Private boats tied up near Hamarikyu Gardens.

Tokyo Maritime University ship with Fuji TV and the Rainbow Bridge in the background.

Stopped at Hinode Pier where we transferred to another boat bound for the Tokyo Big Sight.

Pretty ugly day, but there is just something I like about the Tokyo harbor area.

Coast guard ship in Odaiba. There is a pretty cool movie and TV series about the coast guard in Japan called “Umizaru” (Sea Monkeys).

High rises in Odaiba.

Another crazy looking building in Ariake.

We finally reached our destination at the Tokyo Big Sight, which is an impressive looking structure in itself.

I wanted to check out the Tokyo “Garaging Expo”, which is basically a gathering of custom garage and home companies that can build you the garage of your dreams.

Maybe some day when we are filthy rich I can come to this event and say, “OK build me that one”.

After wandering around the Garaging Expo event a little, we headed out to Shinjuku to hang out with Joey from Wrecked Magazine who was in Japan for D1 at Fuji Speedway. We had some dinner and then hit up a nearby arcade for some racing action.

By then the weather had gotten kind of cold and rainy so I didn’t bother to take any more pics. It’s OK though because we would be heading back to Odaiba on Sunday for the Mooneyes event and I would be dragging the camera along again.

Look for another update tomorrow some time. For now, you can see some of the other Tokyo pics from Saturday right here.

Walking Around at Midnight

I was bored tonight so I took the camera out and snapped a few shots. I think these are like the first night shots I have done since I got here. Oh well.

During the day this is a pretty busy street, but at midnight not so much.

The soil lab. I wonder if those lights mean people are in there working this late?

The Tsukuba International Congress Center. Very important.

Empty pedestrian path and bridge.

I think the manga/Internet cafe is the most happenin’ place in town on a Saturday night.

HID’s look cool on long exposure shots. EVERYTHING has HID’s here, even kei cars and delivery trucks.

That’s it for now. I’m going to try to take random pics for this blog more often.

Slow and Rainy

Sorry I haven’t posted anything for a while. I have been pretty busy and it’s been raining almost every day for the past week or so. Yesterday, I headed up to Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture to do some shopping with Kaori, her mom and her sister. I bought a totally fashionable hat that I desperately needed (I just recovered from massive the sunburn I got at the Hyper Meeting).

When we were driving up there we passed right by Koguchi Power but I don’t think the others were in the mood to drop by. We also went right past Nissan’s huge Tochigi plant where the Z, Skyline, and R35 GT-R are made. It looks awesome and I’m hoping to for a better look soon.

The other day a stray cat wandered to the back patio of our apartment and Kaori fed it some old bread we had. Of course, it has come back every day since looking for some food. Today we picked up some actual cat food to feed it. Probably not a wise thing to do but we I guess we have a soft spot for cats.

Anyways, I will try to get some more interesting stuff to post this week. Hopefully the weather will be better.

Quake!

A couple hours ago, I was sitting in the living room doing some work on the computer when I heard a faint “rumbling” sound.  A couple seconds later the apartment started shaking pretty good. Just another earthquake…

I think this one was actually the strongest I have felt since I have been here. It was centered not far from here and the magnitude was a 5.0. It wasn’t strong enough to knock anything over, but the hanging light in the living room was swinging around quite a bit. It probably lasted about 10-12 seconds in total.

The “X” on the map above shows the location of the quake. Tsukuba is located a little to the right of the “X”.  The triangles represent the amount of earth movement on the Japanese scale with 1 being the smallest and 7 being the highest. The most severe areas for this earthquake were a 4 and the Tsukuba area was a 3.

Back home, a quake would really freak people out, but here it’s just another part of the daily routine. As you probably know, Japan is one of the most quake-prone areas in the world.  When I first got here I would be startled during a quake but now I am getting used to it now. I would say on average I probably feel a quake about once or twice a week.

Ah the excitement of living in Japan….

Fooling Around With My New Toy (Tool?)

As I wrote about the other day, I picked up a camcorder so I can start documenting racing events and other things. Today I finally got a chance to take the camera out and shoot some video around the neighborhood. The sakura are blooming pretty nice right now so I figured it would be a good time to grab some footage.

Here is what I came up with after some quick editing-

The whole thing was shot over a span of about 20-30 minutes this afternoon. I’m a newcomer to YouTube so I’m not really sure what rendering methods look best for YouTube but hopefully I will figure it out soon. You can hand me my Oscar now.