Tag Archives | 東京

Tokyo Sky Tree is Rising

By on August 20, 2010 in japan

Soooo…I’ve been on holiday for a bit and you’d think that would mean that I’d have more time for blog posts, etc., but what it’s actually meant is that I have not been spending much time on my computer at all (even my Tweets are few and far between the past several days). This is,of course, a good thing because it means that I actually am on holiday!

What have I been doing? Well, the main focus has been going to matsuri and shooting people (with a camera). Other than that, I have been doing quite a bit of reading and just enjoying my free time.

What I have also been doing is watching the Tokyo Sky Tree grow – it is, at the same time, both a fast and a slow process. I know that makes no sense, but it’s slow in the sense that it won’t officially open until 2012 and it’s fast in the sense that I occasionally look off the balcony and think: “wow, it’s really progressing in height…”.

I took this last week:

Tokyo Sky Tree in August, 2010

They are about half way to the second observatory, so I’d say that they are at about the 400 metre mark (with another couple of hundred metres to go and a final height of 643 m).

Well, actually, I’ve just checked the official Japanese site, where they post the official progress, and they are at 418 m! (I didn’t know they were posting a height tracker – that’s pretty cool.)

Yes, matsuri pictures coming soon…

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Sharks in Ginza!

By on August 4, 2010 in japan, Photography

I briefly alluded to the Sony Aquarium in an earlier blog post , but I’ll mention it again here because I happened to be passing by the other night and I took some photos of the current aquarium inhabitants.

Every summer, an aquarium is set up outside the Sony Building in Ginza and there is some kind of “theme” (this is the 43rd Sony Aquarium) . The 2010 theme is “Kuroshio” (黒潮), which is the strong Pacific current that sustains the coral reefs around Okinawa, so here’s what you can see curbside every day until August 31 (obviously, despite the title of this entry, it’s not just sharks):

White-tip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus) (ネムリブカ)

Malabar Grouper (Epinephelus malabaricus) (ヤイトハタ)

Zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum) (トラフザメ)

Moray eel (Muraenidae) (ウツボ)

Young tourist looking at the sharks (tempted to follow the pattern and put Homo sapiens here)

another angle of the same White tip reef shark

If you feel so inclined, you can also venture up to the 8th floor and catch the 3-D Sony Aquarium movie in which you can (as the Sony Aquarium website says):

Experience the dynamic Kuroshio (Japan Current), the Pacific equivalent of the Gulf Stream, on a giant 200-inch screen. See whale sharks and manta rays roam freely alongside myriad varieties of fish. Itfs so real, youfll feel like youfre swimming alongside a whale shark through the powerful currents of the Okinawan sea.

The link to the English site is here (and I’m happy to report they’ve updated it because it was horribly outdated when I did my earlier post) and the Japanese site is here. It’s worth clicking on the Japanese link for the very pleasing intro (which has some English subtitles as well).

For the technically curious, all of the above photos were taken with the silky smooth Canon 135 f/2.o L USM – a lens you will NEVER regret buying (but you will regret not having bought it sooner)!

There is definitely something quite fabulous about walking through Ginza late at night (or anytime, really), coming across a giant aquarium and then seeing the delight and wonder on people’s faces as they take a few moments out of their day to to marvel at what’s inside.

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