Category: Architecture

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Tuesday/ drive down to Astoria

The drive time down to Astoria is slightly less than 4 hrs. We made stops in Shelton and on the Washington State side of the Astoria-Megler bridge, which added to the travel time.
This mural is off the main street in Shelton, a town on one of the south-western extremes of Puget Sound. It is a nod to the times when timber was transported by steam locomotives. The town still have lumber yards, but these days the transportation is done mostly by trucks.
A rain-coated boatsman outside an antique store in Shelton. Shelton gets a LOT of rain, some 62 inches per year.
This is on the Astoria–Megler Bridge: a steel cantilever-through-truss bridge that spans the Columbia River between Astoria, Oregon and Point Ellice near Megler, Washington. Construction was completed in 1966. The road surface and sidewalks are being renovated right now, and there was a short stop on the bridge. (Don’t worry, I’m in the passenger seat!).
Here’s a view from the Astoria Riverwalk, on the old wooden piers just east of the bridge. So the Pacific Ocean lies in the distance, on the other side of a bluff in the distance.
The Wet Dog Cafe Brewery is where we had a beer and something to eat. It is near Pier 11 on the Astoria Riverwalk. There is a trolley (really a train) that runs along the waterfront between 12 noon and 6 pm.
The beautiful John Jacob Astor Hotel building in downtown Astoria. Originally built in 1923, it was renovated in 1986 with 66 apartments of subsidized housing. Businesses moved into the lower floors.
The Museum of Whimsey is an art museum housed in a historic 1925 bank building that had been renovated.
Hey! Nice to see some gay pride celebration lamppost signs. I see we just missed the parade though : it was this past weekend.

We made it to Astoria with a stop or two along the way (Shelton, Dismal Nitch.  There was some rain on the way here, but later in the day it cleared up.

The Astoria column was built in 1926 on Coxcomb Hill in Astoria, financed by Great Northern Railway. The 125-foot (38 m)-tall column has a 164-step spiral staircase case to the small observation deck at the top.

We arrived early enough to check into the motel, and to walk around the waterfront and downtown Astoria.

I love the bobbing buoy on the little Buoy Beer Co. truck. Pronunciation note: In South Africa we say ‘boi’ but I learned that in the USA we say ‘boo-ē’.
A map of the ship channel (dredged waterway) in the mouth of the Columbia river. There are pairs of buoys in the water and on land at different elevations, that should line up when looked at from the ship, to confirm that the vessel is in the shipping canal.
This is artwork at a little plaza that is dedicated to immigrants in downtown Astoria.
These murals are on old warehouses on the Astoria waterfront, a nod to times long gone now, from the last century.
Some of the trash cans downtown are decorated with the seafood cannery labels from long ago.

 

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Wednesday/ the Federal Office building

A photo from the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889. A pot of glue over a gasoline fire – in what was a woodworking shop – boiled over. That started an inferno that raged on for 12 hours, destroying 25 city blocks.

I walked by the Federal Office building on 1st Avenue in downtown Seattle today.
Whoah! I thought .. I love all the Art Deco lines and motifs at the main entrance.

I learned later that the Great Seattle Fire of June 6, 1889 actually started right there, in the basement of what was a woodworking shop.

The Federal Office Building (completed in 1933) on 1st Ave in downtown Seattle is a great example of Art Deco architecture. The facade is stepped (see insert picture), with the outer portions rising from six stories to nine stories, while the central tower reaches eleven stories in height. The tower is topped by a ziggurat (stepped pyramid) with a flagpole at its apex. [Source: Wikipedia]

 

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Sunday/ construction frenzy

Seattle downtown’s construction frenzy shows no sign of slowing down, with 68 projects counted this spring.

Here are a few pictures from my walkabout in downtown on Sunday afternoon.

These new glass and steel buildings are in the Denny triangle. I’m looking toward Stewart Street. The tall wedge-shaped building is the Kinects Tower, slated for completion in July; 40 stories with 357 apartments. The shorter building with its tower at the back is the Tilt49 building. Those are offices in the front, with a 36-story, 368 apartment building at the back.
Close by, construction is starting on an extension of Seattle Children’s Hospital research facility, scheduled for opening in 2019.
Here’s another completed apartment tower, this one 39 stories tall, the Cirrus Tower. One bedroom apartment rentals start at $2,500 per month.  Right in front of me is the construction site of Amazon III, which will be 38 stories tall when completed at the end of 2018.
(This is not a new building, but I like it). The two-story Washington Talking Book and Braille Library (WTBBL, pronounce Wuh-tah’-bull) is housed in a 1948 building in the Streamline Moderne style (a late type of the Art Deco architecture). The building started out as an auto dealership that sold Dodge and Plymouth vehicles. WTBBL moved into the building in 1983.
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Sunday/ Amazon construction update

The city of Seattle had a decent Sunday (with sun!), and I used the opportunity to go check out the progress on the Amazon biospheres.   There is also a third Amazon tower building for which construction had started in the fall of 2016, with its completion scheduled for some time in 2018.

The three biospheres all have complete outer shells, but there is still work needed on the inside. What must surely be the city’s smallest dog park, is in the lower right of the picture : an enclosure barely bigger than my sitting room. Just behind the white containers on the left of the picture, is the foundation of Amazon Tower III, slated for completion in 2018.
Here is an artistic rendering of the three Amazon Towers. From left to right : Amazon I is the set of buildings with the red & green; Amazon II is the blue one to the right of the biospheres, and Tower III is the one on the far right, still under construction (37 floors). © Magnusson Klemencic Associates
This is the view on the north-facing side of Amazon II. There is an Amazon Go grocery concept store* on the far corner (where the yellow paneling ends) – but the store is not yet open to the public. *There are no check-out lines. The store uses technology to detect when a shopper takes an item from the shelf, and then syncs the data to the shopper’s smart phone.
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Sunday/ day trip to Basel

I did make it out to Basel today, but stayed only for four hours or so, using the street cars to get around to where I wanted to go.  Basel is a stone’s throw away from Germany, and from France.  I heard a lot of French on the street cars.

Here’s the route to Basel, from Oerlikon station in the north of Zurich. That’s the train on the inset picture, and the platform sign says we depart at 10.01 am for the Swiss Federal Railway Station at Basel; the 1’s and 2’s indicate the cars with 1st class & 2nd class seating, and which sections on the platform they will stop at. The train only stops for a minute or two! Do NOT be a whole 5 minutes away from where you need to be, when that train comes in and stops!
Here’s the main entrance of Basel SBB railway station. It has operated since 1854 but was rebuilt in 1860 and again in 1907, with another major upgrade in 2003.
This is Marktplatz with its eye-catching red Town Hall (Rathaus).
The little plaza inside the the town hall. The inscription in the middle at the bottom reads ‘Freiheit is über silver und gold’ – (The value of) Freedom is more than that of silver and gold.
The Les Trios Rois (The Three Kings) hotel with the symbol of basel on the left : a black crosier (a hooked staff carried by a bishop as a symbol of pastoral office).
Here’s the mighty Rhine River that flows through Basel.  I am standing on the Mittlere Brücke (Middle Bridge).  The south is to my left and north is to my right. Germany is just a few miles away to the north. Also, as I’m looking west, and can probably see some of France in the distance.
This is Spalenvorstadt (Spalen suburb) with Spalentor (the Gate of Spalen) at the end of the street. The gate was part of the ancient city walls of Basel, dating back to the 1400s.
Here’s Spalentor from the other side.
Here’s another ancient city gate; this one is called The Gate of Saint Alban. The gate was originally constricted in 1230, but mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1356. Reconstruction was completed in 1374. The gate even survived a planned demolition 1869.

 

 

These buildings line Barfüsserplatz. I took the picture from the steps of the Barfüsserkirche (Barfüsser church).
The Elisabethenkirche (church) was built from 1857–1864, and is the best known neo- Gothic building in Switzerland (Source: Wikipedia).

 

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Friday/ Lake Zürich

I did my short round cruise on Zürichsee* today. It was nice enough .. no fairy-tale castles to behold from the lake, just the Lindt & Sprüngli Chocolate Factory.  The other highlight of my day (believe it or not, and don’t laugh) was my visit to the Zürich main post office.   I had to stop myself from buying one each of all the beautiful stamps they had for sale.

*German for Lake Zürich – and meer is actually sea! Here is a little table.

GermanEnglish
ZürichseeLake Zurich
Rotes MeerRed Sea
Atlantischer OzeanAtlantic Ocean
Golf von MexikoGulf of Mexico

Here’s our 300-person passenger ferry Uetliberg, named for a mountain near Zürich. The vessel is 42m (138 ft) long and 7 m (23 ft) wide and has been in service since 1999.
The inset shows our 1h 40 min circular trip at the top of the Lake. Some really nice houses are visible from the water. It was a beautiful day, but it’s still very early in the season so only a few paddleboarders, kayakers and sailboats were around.
I hopped off at the last stop in the boat cruise, at Willishofen, where I found this giant Lindt Milk Chocolate Gold Bunny at a gas station with a superette. Stores have tiny, regular and giant 1 kg Lindt chocolate bunnies for sale (the 1 kg ones go for SFr. 50 / US$50).
Here’s the Zurich Main Post Office building on Kasernenstrasse 97 ..
.. with fine old mosaic tiles on the bottom entrances still intact. But take a look at the blue and red letters visible in the lobby inside. Google has set up shop in the building as well.
Here’s my little set of Swiss stamps I bought – just for fun. The bicycle stamps celebrate the 200 year anniversary of the invention of the bicycle (in 1817 by the German Baron Karl von Drais). The flower and butterfly stamps feature a fine laser-cut perforation so that the exact shapes can stay intact. In the middle is a set of three stamps that gives a nod to the Gotthard Base Tunnel for which construction was completed in 2016.
This is just a cute jewelry store window display, for jewelry for kids (note that mom or dad would have to be prepared to splurge several hundred SFr.). The display has it all though : castle, princess in distress, knight in shiny armor and the dragon (the dragon looks a little sad – aw).

 

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Tuesday/ Zürich Old Town

Drink your Züri water! This little notice is from my hotel bathroom to say the tap water is absolutely fine to drink.
The Landsmuseum (National Museum) is right across the main train station. It is not very big, but the exhibits it has, are nicely presented. The main exhibit right now is of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the connection between Zürich and Russia. (From Wikipedia : There was significant emigration of Swiss people to the Russian Empire from the late 17th to the late 19th century.  Also, Zürich played host to both Lenin and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).

Zürich has been around for a long, long time : when the Romans founded it in 15 BC, they called it Turicum.  I can tell the German they speak here is different from Germany’s (not that I understand a whole lot of it!).   The city has a reputation for its quality of life, but man! you’d better have a good job or have money to spend.  My $4 Seattle Starbucks latte (admittedly expensive already) goes for $6.50 here, and I paid $25 for a pretty modest (but very nice) lunch today at seafood franchise Noordsee. The same lunch cost $16 in Germany.

Here’s the quick orientation of Zurich I gave myself, when I started out today. The Marriott hotel (at the top) is at the confluence of the Limmat and Sihl rivers. The blue at the bottom is Lake Zurich. The old town sits all around the Limmat river (the one on the right).
The main entrance to the Zürich Hauptbahnhof (main station). It’s early evening and lots of commuters are leaving the station to go home.  The blue-and-white flags beside the Swiss flag on the right, are the flags of the City of Zürich.
Zürich Altstadt (Old Town) has lots of crooked and cobbled streets, and two and three storey buildings, many of which date back to the 1500s or 1600s. (Renovated many times, I’m sure, though).
‘Hier wohnte Johannes Caspar Lavater 1778-1784’ says the words in the panel. I saw several other buildings with names and dates on them.
‘Haus Zur Glocke (House of the Bell) dates back to 1357, then owned by bell maker Konad Glogger. The neo-Renaissance facade was added in 1881 architect Adolf Brunner.  Finally, in 1925 the art deco ceramic cladding on the ground floor for the cafe-restaurant was added.
There are many, many luxury shops and expensive watch stores on Bahnhofstrasse, and they get ever more upmarket the closer one gets to Lake Zurich. Many of the street names here go by ‘gasse’ (alley) and not ‘strasse’ (street). I guess that is correct, given how narrow they are!
The Grossmünster (‘great minister’) as seen from the Münsterbrücke (Münster bridge) over the Limmat river. It is a Romanesque-style Protestant church. Construction of the present structure commenced around 1100 and it was inaugurated around 1220.
Here’s a panoramic view of Münsterhof square with some of the guild houses (or halls). These are buildings historically used by guilds for meetings and other purposes. Today many of them have been turned into restaurants on the ground floor and office space upstairs.
Here’s Lake Zürich by Bellevue platz as the sun set tonight. The swans are squabbling over a little tidbit in the water.
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Saturday/ Marienplatz

Marienplatz has been Munich’s main square since 1158 (whoah). This is the bell tower with the Glockenspiel which is part of the Neues Rathaus (New* Town Hall) *New is relative, in this case meaning since 1874. Is is exactly 12 noon, and soon thereafter the two carousels came to life, with kings and knights and joker characters going around for a few minutes.
The view of the Frauenkirche from a street coming out of Marienplatz.
This is the Montgelas Memorial (artist Katrin Sander, 2005) at Promenadeplatz square in the old city. Maximilian Josef Garnerin, aka Count von Montgelas (1759–1838) was a Bavarian statesman.

It was a beautiful spring-like day on Saturday, and I spent most it on and around Marienplatz, just doing a random walk around it, with a nice lunch at German seafood franchise Nordsee, and a coffee at Starbucks.

Some men dress up in lederhose, others walk their dogs on Marienplatz .. this pooch must have gotten something caught in its long hair. There was also a ‘women against inequality’ group singing songs and making their case from a podium, with a few policemen at hand to keep an eye on the crowd.
This is the view looking eastward from Marienplatz.
Inside the department store Galeria Kaufhof, off Marienplatz, this T-Rex is displaying its, um – charming character.
Check out these old collectable pictures, part of a large series, of the buildings of Munich in the 50s and 60s (or earlier? I’m not sure). I bought these at the Munich City Museum’s store for a few euros.

 

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Friday/ Munich U-bahn

I spent much of Friday traversing the city on the U-bahn, stopping at the stations with really nice interiors to take some pictures.   It still gets pretty darn cold outside as soon as the sun sets (down to freezing), so it’s good that I packed my scarf and gloves.

These giant domes bathed in purple from the walls and ceiling are at Westfriedhof station all the way north on the U1 line.
Sign inside one of the train cars; one of those uniquely German words : ‘Schwarzfahren’ .. traveling without a ticket. (Yes, but will an offender even bother to read the sign?)
This badge is painted on the outside of a train car on the U6 line, a symbol to the city’s historic past, but that’s all I know.
Many older stations such as Sendlinger Tor (Sendlinger Gate) have older interiors.
This beautiful building is right next to my hotel at Berlinerstrasse 95. It belongs to Munich RE Group, a reinsurance company based in Munich.
Fridge magnets from a souvenir store. Isn’t the bearded guy in his Bavarian lederhose with his beer and his doggie just utterly charming?
This is the underground inside of the large train station at Marienplatz. Five years ago when I was last here it was a big mess with all the renovation going on, and now it’s looking great.
And this is a little further down at Marienplatz, by the U-bahn platforms. It’s 10 at night, so no humans around to spoil the clean lines of the tunnel !
The station called Münchner Freiheit (Munich’s Freedom) on the U6 line has beautiful blue columns with LED lighting to accent the blue. The walls are yellow, and the ceiling panels a polished metal.
This is the street level at Münchner Freiheit station. It is somewhat of a hub since there are connecting bus lines and tram lines here as well. (But certainly the new BMW would be the sweetest mode of transport, right?).

 

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Saturday/ the Castle of Good Hope

Here’s a very nice diagram of the Castle of Good Hope that I found in a magazine.  I drove by there a few times in Cape Town this week, and could for the life of me not remember the names of all five points.  Now I know (again) what they are : Katzenellenbogen (translated from Dutch, literally : ‘the cat’s elbow’), Oranje, Buuren, Nassau and Leerdam.

*[From Wikipedia] Built by the Dutch East India Company between 1666 and 1679, the Castleis the oldest existing colonial building in South Africa. It replaced an older fort called the Fort de Goede Hoop which was constructed from clay and timber and built by Jan van Riebeeck upon his arrival at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.

 

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Sunday/ the V&A Waterfront

My friends Bryan and Dale and I made a quick run out to the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront today. It was very pleasant outside at the Waterfront (25℃/ 75 ℉).

Cheers! San Marcos at the V&A Waterfront. Our beers are from Namibia, mine a Windhoek Light and Bryan’s a Windhoek Lager. (Thanks for snapping the picture, Dale!).
This is one of my favorite buildings in the Waterfront, the Old Port Captain’s Building (1904).
The Victorian Gothic-style Clock Tower was the original Port Captain’s Office, built in 1882. The pointed Gothic windows surrounds the structure with a clock, imported from Edinburgh, as a main feature. The red walls are the same color as they were in the 1800’s, the new paint matched with scrapings of the old.

 

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Monday/ hello, Heidelberg

It takes about 48 minutes on the Stuttgart-bound train from Frankfurt to Heidelberg.

I took a Deutsche Bahn train to Heidelberg today in the morning, returning to Frankfurt some 4 hours later.  It’s not the best time of year to visit, of course – but Heidelberg has Heidelberg University, founded in the 14th century.  I also wanted to check out Heidelberg Castle, conveniently located on Königstuhl hill right by the Altstadt (old town).

This is Markplatz right next to Heiliggeistkirche (the Holy Ghost Church), off Hauptstrasse. It is chilly – not a lot of people around!
This is the Neckar River that runs through Heidelberg. It is a major tributary to the Rhine. To the right of the sluice gates is a set of locks, elevating the river surface upstream by a few feet.
This is the entrance to the Institute for Translation and Interpreting at the University of Heidelberg, at 52 Hauptstrasse.
This is looking west on Hauptstrasse, with Zum Guldenen Schaf (‘To the Golden Sheep’) tavern on my right.
This is an ornate and very beautiful pair of entrance doors on Universitätsplatz (University Square).
This little square is called Kornmarkt (I think) .. in the background on Königstuhl hill is the redstone buildings and remains of Heidelberg Castle.
Heidelberg has the distinction of having both the oldest and the most modern funicular railways in Germany. The lower portion opened in 1890, and was most recently updated in 2004, giving it the ‘most modern’ title as well.  Here’s the little train car on the funicular railway that goes up Königstuhl hill. There is a walkway up the hill as well (but it’s easier and way more fun to take the little train).
It’s a quick ride up, through some very old tunnel. I am sitting in the last row at the back, and this is the view down.
Alright! Let’s go inside and see what the castle looks like.
This is the back of the best-preserved part of the castle. The front overlooking the city, looks similar. The black and yellow flag on the tower on the right is the City of Heidelberg flag.
Lion’s head detail on the castle wall from the previous picture. Is this a sad lion? Like the one in the Wizard of Oz?
Here’s a zoomed-in view from the city from a vantage point on the castle.  The church towers of the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church) on the left, and the Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church) on the right, stand out.   That’s the Neckar River at the top of the picture.

 

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Sunday/ construction update

It was finally warm enough* for me to venture out for a walk-about in the city today, to ‘inspect’ the construction going on in downtown Seattle.

*43°F/ 6°C .. so still pretty chilly, just not freezing !

The cladding of ‘The Mark’ is progressing. The 660 ft-tall building has 44 floors and is scheduled for completion in April 2017. (I’m not an expert, but just looking at it from the outside, I think the completion will be a few months later than April!).
The three Amazon biospheres have all their panels fitted, but there is still a lot of work to be done on the inside. They are scheduled for completion in the spring of 2018.
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Friday/ Shibuya

Newly-clad copper roof of part of the Meiji shrine. The copper will oxidize and turn green over time.

I made a ran out to the Meiji Shrine in Shibuya ward on Friday .. but found it not as impressive as other shrines I have been to on previous visits. The shrine is dedicated to Emperor Meiji and his wife, Empress Shōken.  The emperor died in 1912, and the shrine was constructed in 1915.

This beautiful building is nearby the Meiji shrine, and houses administrative offices.  (The copper cladding on the entrance canopy has turned green).
This is in Shibuya. The tear-dropped shaped kōban (police box) on the left is unusual. Usually they really are ‘boxes’!
Half-boy, half-bird face on an advertising display panel at the entrance of a Virtual Reality arcade in Shibuya. Judging by the clientele inside, I was wa-ay too old to go in (but I did, anyway).
Inside Shibuya station.
The more mundane platforms on the old Ginza line that I use to get to Kyobashi station by the hotel.
Display panel by the door inside the train car on the Ginza line. The program generating the display not only ‘knows’ which line the train is on, it also knows which CAR of the train it is in, and displays precise directions of connecting lines and how to exit the station.
It was the Year of the Monkey, so the stock market went up and down, said the news reader at the final day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. And weatherwise it is not warm, but at least sunny here in Tokyo.  Six days ago there was a massive snowstorm north in Sapporo, trapping hundreds of Hongkongers in Sapporo and sparking violence at the airport that needed police attention.
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Wednesday/ more Hong Kong

Here are my pictures from Wednesday’s walkabouts in the city.  I spent some time on the Hong Kong mainland side (Kowloon).  My Marriott Courtyard hotel is on Hong Kong island.

This is the Kowloon train station entrance from the plaza by International Commerce Center (the 108-storey, 484 m skyscraper completed in 2010 in West Kowloon). The ICC is behind me.
This is the base of the International Commerce Centre skyscraper. Besides the international financial services firms, there is a Ritz-Carlton Hotel in the skyscraper as well. (Here’s to hoping that the ‘smartest guys in the room’ in their suits are not brewing up another 2008-style financial crisis for us!).
There is a Christmas tree with Fantastic Mr Fox characters on display inside the ICC. This is Rabbit, one character of many in the Fantastic Mr Fox novel.  (A children’s novel written by British author Roald Dahl, also made into an animated movie in 2009).
Lots of Hong Kong taxis outside the Times Square mall in Causeway Bay. These old Toyota taxis are hanging in there; I don’t see too many Priuses that had replaced them yet.
I cannot leave Hong Kong without a tram ride, I thought .. this is the view from one taking me to Lan Kwai Fong (‘party central’ for the expats in the city). I am sitting upstairs and right up front, and trying not to annoy my fellow passengers ‘too much’ by incessantly taking pictures.
This is the start of a whole series of escalators and stairs that make it easy to go up the hillside to the ‘mid levels’ where more shops and restaurants are.
Check out these gorgeous exterior wall decorations from a building in Wellington Street in Lan Kwai Fong.
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Tuesday/ Hong Kong at night

Tsim Sha Tsui : still my ‘favorite’ Hong Kong station name. And the new stations does not feature the little mosaic tiles on the walls.
This is inside the Landmark Atrium mall in Central District. Nevermind that Christmas Day has come and gone – the mall is still using its elaborate display to draw shoppers. (The stores are empty, though. I felt sorry for the bored shop assistants).
Bank buildings in the Admiralty district, lit up. From left to right: the Bank of China building, the Cheung Kong Center, the Agricultural Bank of China, the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Main Center, the Standard Chartered Bank.
Nearby, the City Hall Public Library was in on the action as well (of lighting up its building with changing colors on the different floors and cells).
And here is a late night photo shoot taking place on the quiet streets in Central District by the designer stores. By day the sidewalks are packed with pedestrians, and the streets filled with buses, cars and trams.

Here are pictures from my late night venture into Central District.  It’s been four years since I have walked around in the city. The city continues to add to its already staggering inventory of skyscrapers, and there seems to be more Starbucks coffee shops around than ever; some of them just hole-in-the-wall take out locations.

One can now get to the Marriott Courtyard a little easier with the westward extension of the Island Line. Ironically, the hotel is right in between two new stops .. so still a good 10 minute walk from either station.   The old street trams are still running, though; some of them now nicely refurbished on the inside with new seats.

 

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Sunday/ Perth downtown

Here are some pictures from Sunday afternoon and Monday, of Perth downtown and its surrounding area.

Here’s a panoramic view of the Perth skyline from Kings Park, on the western edge of the city.
These are black ducks, in Kings Park and its botanical garden.
A protea from the small South African section in the botanical garden.
The Western Australia museum is closed for renovations, but I liked this billboard with its swimming dinosaur-lizard.
This building at 139 St Georges Terrace looks like a church, but it is a school : Old Perth Boys school, the earliest government school building in Western Australia, and established in 1852.
This bright red Alfa Romeo caught my eye, in downtown against the old buildings.
And the inevitable city tourist bus, with a kangeroo on the side with the ‘hop on, hop off’ text.
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Friday/ the Albany from yesteryear

Here are some of the older buildings around York Street and Princess Royal Drive in old historic downtown Albany.

The Albany town hall was its first civic building. It opened in 1888.
The ‘London Hotel’ is on Princess Royal Street. It is the oldest licensed hotel in Western Australia, first built in 1856 and rebuilt after a major fire in 1909.
This train came steaming through the main station in Albany this morning. It is westbound, towards the town of Denmark.
This beautiful old gazebo overlooks the main train station.
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Sunday/ Shinjuku

I made a run out to Shinjuku station on Saturday night, if only to test my mega-train station navigation chops (Shinjuku is by far the world’s largest and busiest train station).

Later on Sunday I have to head out to Narita airport for my flight to Perth, with a stop in Hong Kong.

This is the Isetan department store near Shinjuku station, in a beautiful historic building. Life is a Gift .. smart marketing? wise outlook on life? Probably both.
This giant crab on a building near Shinjuku station has animated arms, and is about 20 feet across. I assume it advertises seafood at a restaurant inside.
More upscale shopping in Shinjuku san-chome (Shinjuku Block no 3). Maybe the rainbow colors are purely incidental, or maybe not : the gay night life district is just next door in Shinjuku ni-chome (Shinjuku Block no 2).
There is still construction going on in the streets around Shinjuku station (there was last year). As far as I remember that skylight pyramid is new.
This is Sunday morning, on the Yamanote line from Japan Railways company. I’m at Shimbashi station, going to Tokyo station. Check out the old controls on the pillar on the left.

 

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Saturday/ Ginza and Akihabara

Here are pictures from the time I spent in the Ginza district and in Akihabara.  I spent way too much time in the Yodobashi electronics store – some of it drooling over a beautiful $430 Seiko titanium watch (no! go and think about it first is what I told myself).

A Nissan concept self-driving car in a display on a street corner in Ginza.
This giant ‘polar bear’ with two cubs is in the Wako department store. There is a button in the window that passers-by can push to ring the golden bell (up and to the left of the little guy checking out the bear). And then the bear stirs lazily and opens her eyes, and go back to sleep.
Many of the streets in Ginza were closed for traffic, to allow shoppers to wander around in the streets. Several light displays of giant flowers add some festivity.
Here’s the Sony building in the Ginza district. Look for a sleek all-electric BMW i8 at the bottom of the picture in black and white.
This is the Ginza station on the Hibya line. I’m getting ready to go to Akihabara.
This is a new sign, evidently warning of the dangers of texting or browsing while walking around on the platform at the same time. Yes – it can be very dangerous.
The Yodobashi electronics and appliance emporium is as popular as ever, and I spent a lot of time there. That’s the iPhone 7 that is featured on its billboards.
There are many, many sets of make believe characters in the toy department : the Sylvanian rabbit family, Lego friends. monsters and warriors, and then there are the ‘pose skeletons’. (A little weird, not?).
Another somewhat jarring concept: anime characters dressed up in Christmas gear, for a show called ‘Precious Christmas’.