Tokyo Imperial Palace Autumn Scenes
November 21, 2008
I was fully intent on cycling to Ginza to take some more candid street photographs on a beautiful, sunny fall afternoon in Tokyo that would have been a crime against nature to spend indoors. However, as I turned of Shinjuku Dori in front of the Imperial Palace of Tokyo, I saw all the ginko trees had turned yellow and that a few photographers were taking photos of them. So I thought, I should too. I liked it so much I never left the palace area, and thusly never made it to Ginza. I like how my afternoon surprisingly turned out though.
Faces of Tokyo Series: Kabukicho in the afternoon
November 20, 2008
Those who know what Kabukicho is might expect to see only scantily clad, sad beauties in this photo gallery, along with effeminately suited hosts who herd in lost, lonely ladies. Yet look through every photo. You will see some of the false beauty of the working ladies of Kabukicho, but you will also see the faces of those that live and die on the streets. The kind of people Mos Def raps about. The kind of person I could still become.
DIRTY HARRY [1971] review
November 17, 2008
I recently heard an interview with Clint Eastwood. He’s long been a favorite actor of mine, and even a favorite director. I of course knew the famous line from DIRTY HARRY, “You’ve got to ask yourself, do I feel lucky? Well do you? Punk,” but I had never actually seen the movie. So quite out of nowhere Aya and I decided to watch it this past Saturday night. It was a very good choice.
Autumn Scenes from Shinjuku Gyoen
November 16, 2008
This past Saturday was supposed to be my 7th summiting of Takigo-yama, but unfortunate events with the Chuo Line lead to the nixing of that, but on the positive side led to a very good autumn afternoon in Shinjuku Gyoen. It was unbelievably Aya’s first ever time to this famous Tokyo park! I of course have been 20+ times as it’s within walking distance to my apartment.
Autumn Dusk Skies of Shinjuku 2008
November 14, 2008
There is no doubt I pay way too much for my shoebox of an apartment in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Yet, there are certain benefits to living in the building I do. One of the greatest is the ability to see the sunset each and every day the weather allows for it. Over the course of the year the sun sets over distant mountains in summer, to behind Shinjuku’s skyscrapers in winter and to where it can be seen setting in the above photograph, between the skyscrapers of Nakano-sakaue. Autumn often offers the best sunsets and dusks skies, and even the very rare orange sunset (above).
Last night time Palace laps?
November 10, 2008
FULL RIDE STATS:
- Distance: 15.87 miles
- Time in motion: 1 hour 03 minutes 54 seconds
- Average speed: 14.9 mph
- Max speed: 26.4 mph
3-LAPS STATS:
- Distance: 9.40 miles
- Time in motion: 33 minutes 58 seconds
- Average speed: 16.6 mph
I am actually writing this cycling report like 10 days later. That’s how turned off I was by this ride. I couldn’t even get myself to write about it until now. It was my first cold weather ride of the year, thus the first time I donned my winter Pearl Izumi cycling pants and full finger winter gloves. The pants may not have been necessary, but I never actually felt that overly warm. The gloves were definitely needed.
About this ride . . . well, right off the bat once I got to the palace I got totally boned at one of the first lights on the huge decent, which should be the fasted section of the loop. I had never have to come to almost a complete stop there before. Usually I just whiz by at 28mph. This time I was stuck tip-toeing between traffic stopped at the red light.
And then it was just a total parade of red lights. Plus some street lights on the Tokyo Station side weren’t working so it was quite dark. Then some fool tried to challenge me on the ascent section. I thought it was a real cyclist on a road bike, so I yielded a bit as I felt they were just shadowing me and I didn’t like it. Turns out it was just some fool (j-dude) on a not mama-cheri but some slightly better city bike trying to be a hero. It just annoyed me and I quickly passed him and dropped him.
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Daily Photo: Jason rolls down a hill in Tochigi Prefecture!
November 10, 2008
I’d been seeing kids rolling down hills quite a few times lately, for example at this farm in Nagano. So as soon as I saw this very grassy and rolling hill near Senjogahara Moor in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, I new at some point I’d be rolling down it. The hill was a very gentle one, part of a large open green grass area that I rarely see in Japan. I wanted to run out to it and run around wildly. So I did.
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