After a lot of weekends in Tokyo, its difficult to know where else to visit. Until I stumbled upon this Tokyo tourism webpage with a list of recommended walks around Tokyo. Going through the whole list, I went for the “Discover old Edo (Half Day) [Monzen-Nakacho]” route. This involves taking the Toei line all from Yoyogi JR all the way to Kiyosumi-Shirakawa station.
Kiyosumi Garden
A short walk away is the Kiyosumi Garden, which cost 150Y to enter, which is not too bad considering the gardens are quite well maintained, and the lake there filled with turtles and the largest Kois I have ever seen, some of them size of a full sized cat. This would make a nice place to do some landscape photography with tripods. The rest of the route is a nice walk, but nothing special.
Continue reading 'What to do on a Sunday in Tokyo…'»
Noon at the Kirifuri Highland (Hasselblad 503CX)
When you look at the map of Nikko, there are 3 major attractions. There’s Nikko town proper, with all its UNESCO temples where the majority of tourists are dropped, then to the west there’s Lake Chuzenji and the Onsen at the end of the road, including Senjogahara, which I did in the last trip… and finally there’s the east with Kirifuri highlands. And a visit is not over till I’ve gone to Kirifuri, which is the destination this week. Mountains, forests, valleys & cows!
Its a similar early morning sight. I am having a McGriddles at the McDonalds at Asakusa in the alley near to the Tobu railway station, waiting for the Tobu Sightseeing Center to open its doors at 7:45am to buy the 4400yen All Nikko Pass. The current expectation is that this will not be as impressive as the latter but the only way to find out would be to go and have a look.
Tobu-Nikko Train Stationmaster's office (Leica M6, 50mm Summicron)
While having my McGriddles, it looks as though the bus ride to Kirifuri Kogen will be cheaper to go a-la-carte rather than a full All Nikko pass. A bus ride to Kirifuri cost just about 650 yen according to the web. Making the quick decision to jump on the next available train to Nikko without waiting for the sightseeing centre to open. Looks like I don’t need the All-Nikko pass this time. Again, cheapest ticket is the 2hr train to Tobu Nikko at 1320yen. The limited express trains costs double as they have reserved seats and possibly half an hour quicker. They seem to call these limited express and the services have names like Kegon and Kinu. For me, I can spend 30 minutes extra. Everything is routine now for me with the Tobu station at Asakusa. This is my third time here. Buy ticket, go to platform 5 and board the first 2 trains away from the station entrance. Remember, the other train cars get left behind on the way to Tobu Nikko.
Continue reading 'Travels: Kirifuri Kougen: Tochigi Prefecture, Japan'»
Japan, Travels
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160nc, film, hasselblad, kirifuri, kogen, kougen, leica, m6, maruyama, nikko, ohsasa, ohyama, provia, ricoh, summicron, tobu, tochigi, trek
I’m in Taipei today, and seems that Typhoon Kalmaegi has been pummeling Taiwan for the last 2 days. I do see some light to medium rain, and occasional strong winds, but compared to what I have seen in the past trips to Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines, this didn’t look too much like a TYphoon from where I am in Taipei. News says that there has been some casualties, but I’m already planning to wake up early tomorrow and if there’s a little respite from the rain I might go out for a morning jog. Staying over near the office at NeiHu across the river from Taipei city. Morning jog consists of running 1km to the river and then running along the park across from the city airport. Nice run. Too bad I can’t cover more than 5km now.
Continue reading 'Taipei & Typhoon Kalmaegi'»
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