Tim’s Ramblings

I like them…so you get stuck with more photos of them. Hopefully this way is better than being dragged by me physically from one temple or shrine to the next. Especially since, I’ve found that, for most people, once you’ve seen one or two temples, you’ve seen them all.

Anyway, off we go.

Today dad and I took a little trip out to the Taishakuten. This temple area is famous for being the backdrop to a much loved Japanese movie series called “Otoko wa Tsurai yo” or “It’s Tough Being a Man”. Basic plot. Predictable. Yet heartwarming, it’s a favorite of the Japanese and, as proof, it was once considered by Guinness to be the longest running movie series at 48 installments. It’s apparnetly now been trumped by a Chinese series. However, 48 movies between 1969 and 1995 is pretty impressive. (More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoko_wa_Tsurai_yo)

Anyway, on with the photo tour. As usual, the photos you see are linked to bigger ones and the rest of the photos (18 total) are behing the cut.

We’ll start off with the shot of the temple itself.

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So it’s been a few days since I’ve been back from Nara. 2 full days to be exact (Friday and Saturday). For both days, I headed out to do some shopping. And each time, I was reminded just how far away from Tokyo I am and just how ridiculously crowded Tokyo can get on a weekend before X-mas. It’s to the point of absurdity. Japan may be in a recession but you can’t tell from the number of people out in the city,that’s for sure.

It’s also pretty rough for me since my parents live in a different prefecture of Chiba east of Tokyo. This means for me to get to Tokyo, it will take anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half one way typically taking up to 3 different trains depending on where I’m going. It’s a long trip. And when the trains are crowded and you end up walking forever from one station to the next or from the station to the store and so forth, just going to two stores seems like a challenge.

So…for everyone who have asked for stuff or who I have said will get stuff for them…for some of you, you may need to wait for another time when I come out here again. I did get some stuff but not everything I wanted to and being so far away from my home base at my parents, I just couldn’t do my usual shopping spree. It’s one thing to buy a buttload of stuff and have a short train ride back to the hotel…but another when I’m looking at a very long commute trying to juggle all the packages…

So, with that aside, here are some photos. It’s basically showing just how crowded it is. Or at least trying to. Just a sea of people…

But before we get to that, here is a funny poster in one of the subway platforms.

It’s a poster asking you to not get drunk and be an idiot on the train. But I love the fact that they don’t just tell you not to do it but that if you’re going to do it do it at home! It doesn’t want to caution you against being a drunk. Just being a public drunk. I just found it very…Japanese.

Anyway, the rest are being the cut!

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Okay. Now for the final part of the procession for the Onmatsuri festival along with some photos of the food stands.

I’m home now back with my parents. I left Nara a bit after noon, made my way to Kyoto. Had lunch. Bought some gifts. Then it was another bullet train ride to Tokyo, then a train to Funabashi, and then another train from there to my parent’s station in Katsutadai, then a cab to the apartment. Got home at 6pm. Yup. A good 6 hours after I started to head back from Nara. Long day…

BUT, I wanted to get this posted before I go to bed so I went through and you get the last 26(!) photographs!

Needless to say, all of this will be behind the cut except the first one and even though these are resized, they are not compressed as much to keep the quality as high as possible so, even with broadband, it might take a little bit to load. I thought about splitting this into 2 posts but…nah. You get the whole thing. It’s like getting more for the same price of one post! Right? No? Anyway, off we go.

I realized the last part of this is mostly kids. So to start off, here’s a few boys dressed up as young warriors including the swords and everything though I think the one on the left is getting a bit tired of the walk in unpadded sandals. He’ll look back on this with fond memories some day. Well…or so we hope.

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I’m about halfway through about 300+ photos taken today. Too tired… I’m going to post these and go to bed.

Anyway, today was a crappy weather day. Very very cloudy and occasionally raining…which made walking around pretty much a moot point especially if photography is the main focus and it made any sort of photography quite difficult… Lucky for me, today was day 2 of a 3 day festival at a major shrine in Nara called Kasuga Taishi. This festival has been going on since the 8th century. 8th!! This is nothing like a Macy’s Day Parade. This has been going on none stop every single year for well over 1000 years. The history is staggering.

Of course, due to the rich history, it is also steeped in lots and lots and lots of tradition and ceremony. Some original and some added on over the years. But unfortunately for me, I have no clue what this festival is for… (-_-) Seriously… I assume it’sto honor the gods and so on. There were offerings of fish and such so it may have something to do with the harvest for the year. I’ll have to look it up.

The main thing is, today was a traditional parade. Various participants in traditional clothing from various eras (basically when their part was added on to the original procession) walk from one shrine (near the JR station a good 1.5km away from Kasuga Taishi) to Kasuga Taishi itself. They place a barrier around the main drag in the park for us spectators and I parked myself under a nice tree so I won’t get TOO wet and so I can take care of the camera. I couldn’t use a flash because it will spook the horses either so…this was pretty damn challenging… Ultimately think of these as mediocre photos of a parade but the marchers are wearing traditional Japanese outfits :)

As usual, all photos are linked to bigger ones and other than the first, the rest are behind the link! I will put some explanations now and again if I know something.

I’ll first start off with a cute litte girl all done up in tradional palace maiden (equivalent of a lady in waiting) style.

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…however, I must be honest. The first photo was taken today…but it really doesn’t matter right?

So this is a continuation of photos taken on my first day here. Just about 11 or so more. Hope you all enjoyed part 1. Or if you haven’t looked at part 1 yet or just happened to run across this page there are more photos in an earlier post.

I’ll leave a “what I did today” for a post with photos from today and jump right in.

As usual, these are linked to a bigger photo and the rest are behind the link below.

Looking at this, it’s hard to believe this was taken on December 17th huh? It was pretty chilly for Nara at a high of only about 50.

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Ok. 13 photos for tonight. Can’t do anymore…too tired. But here is a good start of some of the 300+ photos I took today. They are all linked to a bigger photo at either 1600×1200 or 1200×900. Feel free to click on them and take a look. Hell, if you use them for a background, I’ll be even more proud! :) Though I don’t think they came out so good…but still, I’m very happy with the way the new Tamron lens worked for me! Those shots of the statues you see below are taken with the new Tamron lens with image stabilization at a ridiculously slow shutter speed of around 1/20 or slower. Money well spent there! (well…I don’t make any money myself but I am happy with the results so the lens has performed better than I thought it would)

So, let’s kick it off.

After the first one, everything else is behind the cut. Click on the link to see the rest!!

On the way to Nara park, just along the wall on the sidewalk, was this tiny little jizo statue. They are here for various reasons but one of them is to protect travelers. No one even gave him a second glance as they walked past. But I decided to take a little photo of the little guy and his red bib.

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Long day today. Started at 7:15am with a bullet train ride to Kyoto and then an hour ride on the rapid to Nara. The weather was nice, sunny, and cool. The hotel took my luggage for when I check in later and I headed out to Nara park where all of the temples, shrines, and everything else are.

The hotel I’m in is right next to the JR station which makes it convenient but it’s a long walk to the park. Decided to walk it today. Not sure if I’ll take the bus tomorrow. Anyway, Nara is a cool place if you like this kind of stuff. Temples and shrines are everywhere as is lots of historical buildings, all surrounded by woods and deer. Lots and lots of deer. Wild deer with absolutely no fear of humans. It’s…almost too much. I suppose this is like the cows in India but..man…there are TONS of them and they have no fear at all. Weird.

Also met a nice exchange student from Austria. Never got her name though. But if you read this once you get my e-mail let me know! :)

In the end, from between 11am and around 4pm, I took a total of 315 photos. That is…a lot. Filled up a 4GB memory card andabout halfway through my spare 2GB card. Yow. And tomorrow is a full day. Gonna have to be more selective.

So, since I’m approaching this as both a photo taking tour, I brought all my gear with me. This includes my DSLR, 3 separate lenses, extra battery, all my filters, my tripod, and hoods for 2 of the lenses. This makes it incredibly heavy. But I toughed it out. However, after spending a full day I can now say that I have learned a few things. Since I am alone with no one to help, I need to ditch the camera bag. It’s too hard to get to the lenses since I have to put the bag down, unlatch it, pull out the lenses, etc… Too much work. Ditch the tripod as well. I could have used it in a few places but ultimately I don’t use it all the time and even if I’m going for an HDR shot, since this time I will be outdoors most of the time, handheld will be fine. That combined with my new lens having image stabilization and the HDR software having great image alignment capabilities, I can leave it. Filters? Leave those too. Just keep the UV filter or the lens protector on and that’s it. If you are outdoors most of the time, then you should use a polarizer, but in my case, I go from outdoors to indoors to shade and it’s just not worth it. I can’t easily take it off and put it on all the time but I can’t keep it on all the time either. In the end, unless you are going to shoot something like water, leave it. In the end, you can do a lot with post processing anyway.

Of course, this is for my current trip. Maybe next time when I have a set plan on where I’m going back to, I will take more time to carefully photograph and bring the necessary gear but, for tomorrow? 3 lenses, one on the camera and 2 in my messenger bag will be the way to go and put in the extra battery and memory card as well but leave everything else behind.

I actually found myself popping the lenses off and on throughout the day based on what I was shooting so the three lenses aren’t an excess. At least I don’t think so :)

Of course if I was here with someone else with the same purpose and interest, we could have split the load but oh well. There is a certain freedom being on your own too.

Tonight, I had a nice dinner and then realized the hotel has a Japanese style bath house. I’m sure most of you know how it works. It’s a communal bath. You go in, take your cothes off and stick it in a locker, and then walk into the bath. The bath area here is not that big. Only about 12 shower stalls. But you go in, pick one, then shampoo and wash yourself and make sure you’re all clean before going into the bath to soak. The bath was a decent size. Just like an indoor pool but very very hot. Now that you’re squeaky clean, you go in and go “aaaaah”. I have to say…even though this is the first time I’ve done this…this was kinda nice. I’m not a bath person really but something about incredibly hot water was really really relaxing after lugging around that giant camera bag and all these equipment all day long up and down stairs and hills. Might have to do it again tomorrow. I went in at 6 so I was the only one for a few minute until I was joined by 2 other guys. And yes. It’s like those communal showers at the gym. You know they are there but you don’t really make eye contact.

Anyway, off to go through all these photos. Some came out good. Some are only ok. Will probably post a few tonight. Tomorrow there is supposed to be another festival. I’ll see if I can get some good shots. We’ll have to see since they are saying cloudy and possibly rain too.

Ok. Decided to do at least one more post before hitting the sack.

Very random. Thus the title.

So, off we go with the first one! Japan loves Xmas. LOVES it. But not like the US…or maybe too much like the US since it’s purely a materialistic thing except for the very few practicing Christians here. Mostly it’s a gift giving day and marketed towards couples and there are plenty of “Xmas Date Course” specials out there as well as romantic Xmas dinners. And of course there’s the illumination. Tokyo is apparently ablaze with lights. I will get to it later this week and the weekend :) In the meantime, here’s the Xmas lights and the tree by the plaza by my hotel.

Moving on to the drink portion, a new limited edition energy drink is out. And once again, it is linked to a game. And further once again, it’s linked to Final Fantasy.

This time it’s promoting the new PSP game coming out called Final Fantasy: Dissidia. No idea what that means. But it’s basically a fighting game but with the major characters from the FF series. Want to know who would win in a fight between Cloud Strife and Kefka? You can find out! Anyhoo, this is basically te same energy dinrk as the one that was being sold during the Final Fantasy: Crisis Core PSP game back in November of last year. And yeah…I wrote about that too.

http://www.timarai.com/blog/2007/11/01/big-in-japan-drink-celebs-and-models/

(no…I didn’t buy it…the last one tasted…odd)

And finall, a food post

For tonight’s dinner, I went to a “donburi” stand. Donburi is a generic food kinda like how a “casserole” is just food in a baking dish. Donburi is basically just stuff on top of a big bowl of rice. Oh, but the variety. You can have tempura on top. Ground marinated chicken. Fish of all types. Veggies. Meats. Whatever you want. And in Shinagawa there are 5 major Donburi stands side by side for a great selection.

So this time I ordered the standard to check it out. The “Oyako-donburi” or “Oyakodon” as it is commonly called. The name “oyako” literally means “parent and child” and, as the name implies, the major ingredients in this dish are eggs and chicken. And in the one I ordered I also had some kim chee on top. The egg is still very creamy and only partially done. This is on purpose and actually quite tasty. You don’t want the eggs fully cooked through. And you also get onions, some herbs, and a sauce that is slightly sweet and soy based so it’s salty too. The difference at this place is, the chicken is actually grilled. This was a nice surprise when, in the first mouthful, I got the typical oyakodon taste but then tasted nice grilled chicken too. Yum.

I admit…the photo makes it look kinda…nasty. But it really is good. It’s because the egg is only partially cooked and, like I said before, nice and creamy!

Anyway, that’s it. Time to read my guide book I picked up on Nara and go to bed. Got an early early start tomorrow with a 7:15am departure time for the bullet train.

Becase you can never have enough… Ever.

Or maybe it’s just me.

In anycase, I’m currently in Shinagawa and will be spending the night at the Shinagawa Prince hotel and then tomorrow at 7′:15am, I will take off for Nara on the bullet train. Nothing like blasting to western Japan at upwards of 180mph!

But, in preparation for this trip (aka – I needed an excuse…) I went to one of those gigantic electronic stores here in Tokyo and picked up a new lens. Yeah. Another one. BUT it’s not like I have lots! Just 3!! And this pretty much covers the entire range that I need (or want…I like to think that I need it). I got lucky too since this thing is flying off the shelves. Great price (under $1k). Great range (up to aroun 10x zoom). Can’t beat it.

Behold! The new Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5 – 6.3

As you can see next to my watch, this thing is TINY. especially considering it is even a bit shorter and most definitely lighter (only 1lb) than my Canon 24-70mm L. And a max of 300mm!! On top of it all, it has the latest image stabilization technology in there that handles both horizontal and vertical stabilization. This allows me to shoot up to 2 or 3 stops lower than I usually have to at such a zoom rate.

…since I’m calling this camera pr0n, here is the lens at full extention. Oh, and of course this is with the hood on.

It was a bit odd when I took it out of the box since the inside parts sorta…well…rattles. Or at least there’s something moving around in there. Thankfully this is normal (and indicated by a number of reviews). It’s basically the gyro mechanism. It is not exactly fast at focusing but it’s fast enough. And it’s a bit noisy when it focuses and the image stabilization kicks in but I’m not doing closeup macro photography with insects or anything so it’s no big deal. Yes, the f-stop only goes to 3.5 at 28mm and has to be at least at 6.3 at 300mm but that’s pretty normal. And the lack of a fast lens at 300mm is compensated by the image stabilization anyway.

So. To show what it can do, here is a test shot that I took outside of the hotel where I am at. It was hand held. Not the best lighting. And I was not braced against anything. And it was windy. BUT, the resutls were pretty impressve.

Here is the first shot. 28mm 1/200s f/3.5 ISO 400

And here is the shot zoomed in as much as it can go. 300mm 1/20s f/6.3 ISO 400

At 1/20, any movement will cause a blur. So overall, the shot is a bit soft. However, as you can see, it was pretty dark already at 4:25pm so under those conditions, I am very very happy with the results. Depth of focus is decent. And it didn’t have too much of a problem focusing though it took a bit longer than at 28mm.

So, yay for the new lens!

But…it’s just more gear to carry around. Wooo. I just hope the weather is good. Supposed to be good weather tomorrow but possibly cloudy on Wednesday. We will have to see.

So there should be more photos coming in the next few days!! :)

Arg…

I’m off to Japan on Saturday, this time for vacation.

3 days out of next week, I will be primairly in Nara, the ancient capital of Japan with probably a stop to Kyoto on the way back. I’m going by myself. Just me and my camera…and all my gear.

So. How to take this all with me???

I have this kick ass backpack. But it’s ridiculously huge. I originally thought about taking this to Japan with me but…now I’m not so sure. Let me explain…

The Tamrack Expedition 7x is not cheap…and there is a reason for this. It is awesome in what it can hold and carry. A full size DSLR and a whole slew of lenses along with every single extra gear you can think of. It is just plain big. With a great tripod strap along the front too!

But as you can see it is gigantic. Ridiculously so. Especially with those waist support flopping around. It’s pretty heavy as well. But it can hold all 3 of my lenses, my DSLR, my Lumix LX3, my flash, my hoods, my filters, extra batteries both for my flash and my cameras, cleaning equpiment, flip open reflector/gray card, my tripod, and even my 15.4″ Asus laptop.

But that’s it. That’s ALL it can carry. No room really for even my laptop’s power cord let alone my USB mouse or my portable HD. No room for books or magazines or even a guide book. I can probably strap something else on to many of it’s features but…the backpack itself can really only hold photo equipment. The promotional photo has it holding a cel phone and an iPod and stuff in the pockets long the front but those are small stuff. And if I take this to Japan, then my normal Canon camera bag will have to stay since I can’t take both. Which means when I go to Nara I will basically have to lug this on my back from one temple or historic site to the next. And for anyone who has ever been to Japan knows…it is not a friendly place for big unmaneuverable objects…

Soooooooooooo alas, the backpack I think is going to stay… The Canon bag can strap a tripod to the bottom. It’s heavy as hell and not comfy on my shoulder especially since I’ll also probably have my messenger bag across my shoulders too. But oh well. The backpack will be my US bag where I can put it in a car if I need to and also have it if I need to do a bit of treking but not have to carry anything else other than the photo gear.

Too bad too. I really wanted to test out this backpack in Japan. But when it can’t even hold my passport where I can easily get to it? Not the best for international travel. Maybe if I ever go wtih someone else, they can carry my other stuff for me while I carry their photo gear (assuming they are like me) :)

Bummer though…