05 May 2008

Last Days in Japan

I'm finally posting the final photos from Japan (wanted to finish them prior to starting yet another trip).

The day after the visiting all the cherry blossoms around Tokyo, I ventured back to Harajuku and Shibuya. I had been to both these places my first weekend in Tokyo, but there were still a few things I wanted to do there. So I packed the camera and headed off to the Subway.

Once in Harajuku, I immediately spotted the famous area known for the Harajuku girls; girls who are dress is wild and weird clothing similar to our goth girls here in the states. The girls were in some interesting clothing and makeup and they seemed to love the attention from all the tourists. Their shoes were amazing.... huge platform shoes that made my toes ache just from looking at them. The place was filled with more than just goth girls as other attention-seekers were also there. The best one was a guy plainly dressed with a "Free Hugs" sign. Needless to say, he was getting lots of action.

Nearby the Harajuku area is Yiyogi Park where I found several troupes of 50s and Elvis-clad locals dancing to rockabilly music. I'm not sure why, but it was rather humorous to see Japanese men dressing in tight black leather with their hair all greased back, 50's style, dancing to old-time 50s rock music on boom boxes. It was definitely an interesting "cultural" experience. One even had a 50's style pink Cadillac. Heh! Also in the park were numerous garage bands lined up along a pathway vying for the attention of all the park go-ers. The amusing part was that they were all relatively close together and as you walked along, one band's music competed with the neighboring band's music becoming a horrid sympony of bad rock band sounds.
Photos from Harajuku & Yiyogi Park

After all this, I headed to Shibuya to try and get a better photo of the largest pedestrian crossing. After shopping through a local Tokyo department store, it had started to rain. All the folks in the crossing had umbrellas which made the scene interesting and different than I had previously seen. I was only able to find one location to take a bird's eye view of the intersection, but the windows had this wire mess across it, so not to good for photography. The Starbuck's, which had the best view, was way to crowded to find a seat near the window.

As the day was ending, I went up to the Shinjinku area cause I wanted to find this one area there which was the supposed inspiration for the movie Blade Runner. I found the street, but I am not sure if I got the connection to the inspiration. Granted, it's been 20 years since the movie and the place has probably changed, but at least it was a nice evening walk.
Photos from Shibuya & Shinjinku

The following Saturday was my final day in Tokyo and I roamed around the Imperial Palace while waiting for my afternoon flight home. You couldn't get into the inner Imperial Palace grounds of course, but it was a nice morning walk and I got some interesting photos around the moat and outer grounds. This also happened to be when my new Tamron lens for my new Canon 40D decided to break. The zoom ring apparently came off the tracks and the lens no longer zoomed out when turning the ring. I could still take photos, but I had to manually position the zoom lens where I wanted it cause the zoom ring no longer functioned. At least it was on the last day I was there and not the first.
Photos from the Imperial Palace

Two hours later, I was on my home back to USA.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Over the weekend I was trying to balance a clipboard and pen in one hand and the camera in the other hand. I started using gravity to adjust my zoom and then taking pictures. Very funny. Not very professional though!

Got lots of fun photos though. Multi-day events (with 8+ hours of shooting) are a little too much for me though. I'm absolutely beat now!

When do you leave for Alaska?

I keep starting emails to you and then putting all the info into blog comments. Ooops!