I have added 2 pictures into the Autumn 2004 gallery,
after I went for a quick walk around Aoyama, as I couldn't resist checking
whether the trees had all turned into yellow yet. As a matter of fact, some of
them are still a bit green, but I think they will be perfect for this coming
weekend.
I took
another picture
this morning, since I go by the alley everyday on my way to the office, as it
was much less crowded than last Saturday. I hope to be able to drop by one
more time and to see the trees totally yellow this time, but I will also try
to go to Shinjuku Gyoen too, where the Japanese garden must be beautiful by
now and try to take some nice and colorful photos.
I wish I could go to Kyoto to see the Kouyou (紅葉, literally, the tinted autumn leaves), unfortunately, I will be stuck in the office for the next 2 weekends and will only have time to walk around in Tokyo to make use of my camera :).
A
macro shot of a beautiful tulip that Eiko brought back from her drawing class.
This picture has just made it to my gallery of favorites,
replacing this picture of the
guitar
player at "Jazz Is"
Pictures of the Birthday Party for the
other Fred (there's just too many of them lately, someone has to do something),
secretely planned by Nanae to be celebrated at the Barbacoa
restaurant in Omotesando.
There was a really good atmosphere at that party, which comforts me in the idea that my colleagues are also good friends first. The food itself couldn't be more voluptuous, with different kinds of meat ranging from chicken to beef and lamb, served on a all-you-can-eat basis.
I guess that's just what I should have avoided after having spent 2 weeks in Sydney, where meat was served in portions that challenged my digesting abilities, but I guess I can just start my diet tomorrow :).
After having
spent the last 2 weeks in Sydney for a business trip, I came back to Japan (ahh,
there's nothing like home) to enjoy the Japanese Autumn in
Tokyo. One popular spot is in Meiji Jingu Gaien
(明治神宮外苑), where all gather in the Ichou Ginko Street (いちょう並木) to
admire the famous yellow leaves.
Actually, all trees were not yellow yet, and only a few of them were showing this magnificent colour. The best time will probably be in a week or two from now, when it really starts getting cold. At that time, I hope to be able to capture more of their colours.
As mentioned
earlier, when an event like that one occurs in Tokyo, and in spite of Japanese
innate sense for order, some organization is required to make sure that the flow
of pedestrians in a hurry to take photographs of the trees does not disturb the
traffic. The young
person
assigned to that task this afternoon seemed to have a hard time to cope with the
unstoppable flow of people today.
For those who happen to
visit my gallery and think some
pictures are nice but the rest is just snapshots (and they may be right about it!),
I have made a special album
of my favorite 100 pictures.
Some of them are aesthetic, but other ones just remind me of people I love, and even if they may not mean much to everyday visitors, I like to keep a place for them in that album.
The album may be updated, as I want to keep the images count to 100 in this album, so I will be replacing pictures as I take more. Hopefully, the quality will increase over time. All the pictures were taken from 1999 up to now (November 2004).
I've found this cool tutorial
about how to make the same light saber effect as in Star Wars. It only
requires a few steps of Photoshop or After Effects and I think the effect is quite
convincing.
The picture in the thumbnail is actually one of our wedding pictures, where I am actually holding a fan, but everyone told me it would look awesome if I was holding a katana instead. I found it even more funny to hold a lightsaber in a traditional Japanese shrine instead, although it may look a bit dorky :).
Picture taken inside Torafuku, a restaurant that
shines by the quality of the food (I recommend the grilled fish
焼き魚), as much as by the atmosphere that reigns there. The
restaurant is always crowded, showing a 15m line if you go around noon.
As a result, today's service was just deplorable: we received the dishes 20 minutes after the order, and we realized that the waiter had made a mistake in the order and had brought us the wrong dish.
If you want to go, manage to get there and place your order before 11:45am at the latest (this is actually true for any restaurant in business districts). You will then be guaranteed to spend a wonderful time.
