Category: Architecture

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Friday/ Shinjuku 🚆

The rain was relentless on Friday here in Tokyo.
I ran out to Shinjuku train station in the morning and got lost inside the enormous station— before getting soaked in the torrential rain outside of it. 😱

Come early evening the rain was over, though, and I went back to see if I could navigate the station better, and to take a few photos.

The view outside my hotel room in the morning. The top of Tokyo Tower is hidden in the low clouds.
Ooh! .. not looking good out here on the ground, I am thinking.
It is mid-morning and I am on the way to Shinagawa station on the hotel’s shuttle bus.
A colorful mural inside Shinjuku station.
There is no lack of directions to the myriad train lines and exits in Shinjuku station, but Shinjuku Station has over 200 exits and many platforms of different shapes, spread out over a large area, along with department stores covering nearly all sides.
I tried to have Google Maps give me walking directions, and it worked— until it said ‘If there is no GPS signal, navigation may stop working’. Yes. No sh**.
A mural inside Shinjuku.
Looking for a used car? Use the Car Sensor app.
The characters and manga style are from the iconic series City Hunter, which is being used here in a parody/comedic fashion to draw attention.
All right! By sunset (6.02 pm) the rain was gone, and now I’m going to run out to Shinjuku one more time.
This is the exit I had looked for in vain this morning: the South East Entrance by the Lumine 2 store. I am on my way to Takashimaya Times Square nearby.
A street-level view of the pedestrian crossing at the South East Entrance.
I walked several hundred yards now, further to the south, where there is an overlook of the railway lines going into the station.
The clock tower located near Takashimaya Times Square is on the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building. It’s just a day or two until September’s full moon.
I made it back to Shinagawa Station and now heading back to the hotel. No rain!
Check out the sleek billboard above the Hollywood pachinko parlor. It advertises an even sleeker, faster bullet train that is coming— able to fly at 500 km/h (311 mph) on the tracks.
The almost-full moon over a gate in the Japanese garden on the hotel grounds.
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Thursday/ Akihabara and Tokyo Station 🚆

There was drizzle on and off here in Tokyo on Thursday, at a damp 85°F (30 °C).
Outside, I could only take pictures here and there with my big camera, but managed to get a few of the iconic 1914 Tokyo Station building (extensively renovated and restored in 2012).
I also made my first run to the Yodobashi Akiba store in Akihabara.

Nice infographic from the hotel room TV. The pink blobs are Japan’s main islands. That’s Tokyo in the bottom right corner, showing that the 30 °C is down 7°C from yesterday (85 °F , down from 99 °F). Yay! .. even though it still feels very warm and humid. (And are those little characters chickens?)
This is about 9.30 am and I caught the tail end of the morning rush hour into, and out of Shinagawa station.
Office workers and a few others (me) streaming out of Shinagawa station. Walk on the sides, if you are coming into the station, said the display screen.
All right, now I’m heading down to the Yamanote Line— the loop line with Shinagawa station on it, near my hotel. This line has been in service for 140 years now (constructed 1885) and is used by some 4 million people every day. The train had left just a minute ago.
Hello, Yodobashi Akiba! It is by Akihabara station, 8 stops to the north of Shinagawa station.
The toys for kids of all ages are on the 6th floor. The bank of pink claw machines was not there two years ago when I last visited.
In Japan, claw machines are most commonly called “UFO catchers” (ユーフォーキャッチャー) or “crane games” (クレーンゲーム). The term “UFO catcher” comes from the appearance of the claw mechanism, which resembles a UFO descending to capture a prize, a term popularized by Sega when they introduced the game in 1985.
[From Wikipedia]
I bought a few of these Takara Tomy animal figures: the lion, the cheetah, a gorilla, a peacock, a shoebill stork.
Help! The shoebill stork fell down (is its bill too big and heavy?) and someone needs to come and fix the display case. The chameleon figure (bottom) has a movable tongue that can be pulled out and pushed back in. Nice. I now regret I did not get the chameleon, as well.
On the way back on the Yamanote line, I saw Tokyo Tower out of the train window by Hamamatsucho station. It seemed nearby and I stepped out and walked the five or six there— kind of regrettting it, because it started to drizzle. This green space near the Tower is called Shiba Park.
I’m standing under a Himalayan cedar, and that’s the Buddhist temple called Zojo-ji Temple.
From Wikipedia: At its peak the temple grounds had more than 120 buildings, but following the decline of Buddhism during the Meiji period (1868-1912), most of them burned down during the bombing of Tokyo in World War II. Reconstruction began after the war, with the Daiden (great hall) being rebuilt in 1974.
Here’s the Himalayan cedar. A plaque by the tree notes that General Grant (18th President of the United States) planted this tree when he visited Zojo-ji Temple as a guest in 1879 (that’s 146 years ago).  The main gate to the grounds is under renovation and enclosed in a sheet metal building behind the tree.
A cemetery by the temple, presumably with ashes from the deceased. The cemetery at Zojo-ji Temple holds the mausoleums of six Tokugawa shoguns* and their families, serving as the family temple for the Tokugawa clan.
*The shogun (short for Sei-i Taishōgun, 征夷大将軍) was the supreme military and political leader of Japan, ruling for nearly 700 years. The rule of the shoguns ended in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration, which was triggered by growing internal discontent and the disruptive arrival of Western powers.
Dai-Nokotsudo, or Shariden, is where the bones of deceased are stored. It is made of stone and was created in 1933.
Here are several pictures of the Tokyo station building, taken late afternoon and early evening. Tokyo Station is surrounded by many modern glass and steel office towers.

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Tuesday/ The Emerald 🏙️

I take my new camera with me now, every time I go for a walk.
I’m still learning to adjust the exposure and the auto-focus mode.
I also paired the camera with my iPhone (via Bluetooth) so that that the GPS coordinates of my location for each picture can be recorded in the camera on the metadata for the image.
There is a drawback, though: the camera’s battery runs down much more rapidly if it is connected to the phone all the time.
The camera actually has an airplane mode, but it’s a pain to switch it on and off multiple times while walking around.
Better to carry one or two spare batteries to pop into it when one runs out.

I took this picture on Sunday.
It is of The Emerald, a 40-story residential skyscraper located at 121 Stewart Street. Its distinctive glass façade and slightly twisting design makes it stand out in the Seattle skyline. It was completed in 2020.
(This picture is a downsized version, 25% of the size of the out-of-camera picture).
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/2000 s |ISO speed: ISO-250 |Focal length: 73 mm | Max aperture: 4 |Metering mode: Pattern
And what airline might the airplane belong to?
A 600×400 pixel crop of the airplane from the 6,336 x9,504 out-of-camera image reveals that it belongs to Iceland Air.
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Sunday/ a very fine picture 🌇

I have a new camera, after eight years: a Sony α7CR.
It is a mirrorless, full-frame digital camera that takes 61-megapixel pictures— so it is able to capture stunning detail.

Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens from the Melrose Ave E overlook towards South Lake Union
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/320 s |ISO speed: ISO-250 |Focal length: 171 mm | Max aperture: 4.96875 |Metering mode: Spot
The 35 mm (35.7 x 23.8 mm) full frame Exmor R CMOS sensor captures 6,336 x 9,504 pixels (a 2:3 ratio).
In order to post all of the out-of-camera .jpg on this WordPress blog, I reduced it to 25% of its original size.
For right now, I have the camera set to ‘Program Auto’ mode.
So I just framed the image with my Tamron 28-200 mm zoom lens, and the camera picked the exposure and all the other settings.
Here is a 1,853 x 2,471 pixel crop out of the original 6,336 x 9,504 pixel out-of-camera picture, showing the very fine detail that was captured.
The same picture as above, but adjusted with Adobe Photoshop Elements to increase the brightness of the shadows by 35% (revealing the golden elevator car).
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Sunday/ lots of sun ☀

It was a beautiful summer day here in the city (77°F/ 25°C).
I went down to the waterfront to check out the newly renovated Pier 58 that had opened on Friday.

I took the No 12 bus to downtown and walked to Pike Place Market.
I am taking just a quick look here at the overlook towards the Ferris wheel and the aquarium before I head down to the waterfront promenade.
Incoming! Watch out little sail boat!
I did not hear the ferry blare its horn at it, so I suppose it was OK. If I read the ferry schedules right, this was the Kaleetan coming in from Bremerton.
Here is the new play park on Pier 58 with its octopus slide.
The Wings Over Washington theater (with its tilting seats to ‘fly’ over beautiful scenery and mountains) is still there, and popular this time of year with a line of people outside waiting their turn.
The display case at the entrance to the Miner’s Landing arcade with its carousel and video games inside.
Here’s the Pier 57 Historic Carousel inside the Miner’s Landing arcade.
One of several totem poles around the waterfront. This one is on Pier 57.
The Salish Sea Tours boat with its catamaran hull, just arriving back at Pier 57 from its cruise around Elliott Bay.
A display case inside Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on Pier 54. I love the alphabet book that the kids are looking at: L for Loon and M for Moose.
All done! Walking back with the pedestrian overpass over Alaskan Way to 1st Avenue to catch the G-line bus.
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Thursday/ Paul McCartney on stamps ✉️

Funny— that these two stamps were on the envelope from Great Britain containing my Ebay stamps, yesterday.
Paul McCartney (83) announced yesterday that his “Got Back” concert tour later this year in the USA is a go.
(He’s not coming to Seattle).

Paul McCartney in the Studio
Issued May 28, 2021
Perf. 14 | Engraving: International Security Printers Ltd. | 2 stamps from a miniature sheet containing 4 stamps
4376 ENK 1st Class Mail | Black & white photo image | McCartney in the studio, 1970
4377 ENK 1st Class Mail | Black & white photo image | McCartney recording ‘RAM’ album, 1971
[Source: stampworld.com]
P.S. McCartney was 27 in 1970. That was also the year that The Beatles broke up.
From a Facebook page called ‘This Day in Music’: On 10th April 1970, 27 year-old Paul McCartney issued a press statement, announcing that The Beatles had split, (one week before the release of his solo album). McCartney said, “I have no future plans to record or appear with The Beatles again, or to write any music with John”. John Lennon, who had kept his much-earlier decision to leave The Beatles quiet for the sake of the others, was furious. When a reporter called Lennon to comment upon McCartney’s resignation, Lennon said, “Paul hasn’t left. I sacked him.”
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Wednesday/ art nouveau from Paris 🇫🇷

My Ebay stamp dealer from Bishop’s Stortford (northeast of London) included this French postcard and stamp with my purchase.

It is of a cast iron balustrade plaque by French architect and designer Hector Guimard (1867 – 1942).
Look for the stylized ‘M’ at the bottom.
Guimard was a prominent practitioner of the art nouveau style.

French Decorative Art
Issued Jan. 22, 1994 (one of a set of four stamps)
Perf. 13¼ x 12¼ | Design: Jean Paul Véret-Lemarinier | Litho. | Engraving: ITVF Boulazac | No Watermark
2993 CMK 2.80Fr Multicolored | French Metro balustrade by Hector Guimard
[Source: stampworld.com]
__________
More about Guimard from Wikipedia:
Between 1890 and 1930, Guimard designed and built some fifty buildings, in addition to one hundred and forty-one subway entrances for Paris Metro, as well as numerous pieces of furniture and other decorative works.
However, in the 1910s art nouveau went out of fashion and by the 1960s most of his works had been demolished, and only two of his original Metro edicules were still in place.
The first day post office stamp, used on the front and back of the 1994 postcard, with art nouveau lettering.
It turned out I have a few pictures of this metro entrance designed by Guimard.
I took them while I was in Paris in Sept. 2008. 
This entrance is for Pasteur station on Line 6 and Line 12 of the Paris Métro, in the 15th arrondissement. It features several of the Guimard balustrade plaques and meticulously designed street lamps. Even the font (the lettering style) for the ‘Métropolitain’ sign, was Guimard’s invention.
[Shot with Canon EOS 20D f/14, 1/400s, ISO-1600, 36mm focal length]
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Thursday/ an e-bike ride⚡🚲

Four amigos met at the Seattle waterfront this morning.
We rode our e-bikes along the bike trail to Elliott Bay marina where we met up with a fifth amigo for lunch.

I took the G-line bus along Madison Street to the waterfront. There goes my bus, actually, but it does not matter. It’s only 6 minutes between buses, so there is no need to even look at the schedule, or worry that you might miss your bus and wait a long time for the next one.
It’s a short walk from the 1st Avenue bus stop to Colman Dock, also called Pier 52, the primary ferry terminal in Seattle.
That’s the Kaleetan ferry, just leaving for Bainbridge Island. The Kaleetan went into service in early 1968 serving the Seattle-Bainbridge Island route. Over the years it has been upgraded and it has also served the Seattle-Bremerton route and the Anacortes-San Juan Islands route.

Our rendezvous point for starting the bike ride was Molly Moon Ice Cream up ahead.
I’m stopping for a moment to admire Buster Simpson’s public artwork called “Anthropomorphic Dolos*”. 
Dolosse* is a South African invention, first deployed in 1964 on the breakwater of East London, a South African port city.
* A dolos (plural: dolosse) is a wave-dissipating concrete block used in great numbers as a form of coastal management. It is a type of tetrapod. Weighing up to 8 tonnes (8.8 short tons), dolosse are used to build revetments for protection against the erosive force of waves from a body of water. [From Wikipedia]
We pedaled northbound along the Waterfront bike path and the North bike connection.
[Sources: Seattle Department of Transportation, Elliott Bay Connections, Seattle Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects. Esri, Google, Chris Kaeser / The Seattle Times]

Look! No Alaskan Way Viaduct in sight. We’re on our way, on the bike path along Alaskan Way (originally Railroad Avenue, until 1936), and the major north-south street that runs along the Elliott Bay waterfront.
I don’t have my own e-bike, so I picked up a Lime bike for rent that was on the sidewalk near Molly Moon Ice Cream. ($1 to unlock plus 43 cents per minute).
Irises in the flower beds that line the promenade on the waterfront.
This is further up north along Alaskan Way, just past Pier 66 on the left. The construction work (of the overwalk and the aquarium extension) along Alaskan Way has been completed, but not all the paving work for the intersections and bike lanes.
A brief stop by Myrtle Edwards park with its 1.25-mile winding bike and pedestrian paths along Elliott Bay, offering beautiful views of the Olympics Mountains. There’s a Carnaval cruise ship in the distance at the Pier 91 cruise terminal. It was scheduled to depart at 3.30 pm for its ‘Alaska Inside Passage Glacier’ round trip.
We reached our destination: Maggie Bluffs restaurant with its outdoor patio with views of Elliot Bay Marina.
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Monday/ downtown Seattle 🏢

I had lunch at the Washington Athletic Club in downtown today, and took these pictures.

The U.S. Bank Center building between 5th and 6th Avenue is 44 stories tall and opened in 1989.
I had worked inside it on occasion— once upon a time, and years ago now. The American Eagle clothing store that used to be in the domed structure on the corner is long gone.
There are still lots and lots of empty storefronts downtown.
This used to be the Nike store in downtown Seattle (formerly NikeTown), on 6th Ave and Pike St. It closed down permanently in January 2023.
A line of lavender taxi cabs at the entrance to the Sheraton Hotel. (So yes, they are still in business and have not been completely supplanted by Uber drivers).
Here is where I had my lunch, on the second floor.
It is open to Washington Athletic Club members only, and I was invited by a member of the club 🤗.
Done with lunch and now I am snapping a few more pictures on the way to the Seattle Library.
The Skinner building was built in 1926 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I love the detail on the frames above the entrance.
A close-up view of Park Place building on 6th Avenue.
It is a 21-story office tower built in the 1970s and fully renovated by international architect and tenant Gensler in 2012. Is this an example of brutalist architecture*? I wondered.
*Brutalist architecture is a style known for its use of raw concrete, bold geometric forms, and functional design, often characterized by a rough, unadorned aesthetic.
The Crowne Plaza Seattle-Downtown on 6th Ave is a 34-story hotel that was built in 1980 and renovated in 2019.
That’s the Park Place building from the previous picture, in the reflection.
Looks like Seattle International Film Festival 2025 is about to start. That first frame on the film negative below is from the 2023 romance/drama movie Past Lives. (I have seen it and I liked it a lot).
Arrived at the Seattle Public Library‘s entrance on 5th Avenue, and I’m taking the obligatory shot (obligatory for me) of the diamond pattern of the outside frame.
Done in the library and waiting for the G-line bus. In the reflection is the 1928 building of what is today the nine-story Executive Hotel Pacific.
And here comes the G-line bus on Spring Street, to take me back up to Capitol Hill.
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Sunday/ a new condominium tower 🏢

I walked around downtown’s Third Avenue this afternoon, and took a few pictures of the new First Light 48-story condominium complex at the edge of Belltown neighborhood. I had no access to go inside, but just look up “First Light Seattle” for glamorous pictures of the pool deck, and views of Puget Sound and the Space Needle.

It has 459 units that range from studios ($650k and up) to 3-bed, 3-bath penthouses ($3m and up).

This is Virginia Street, with 3rd Avenue at the traffic light.
The First Light condo tower has 48 stories.
That cantilevered structure at the top is a deck with a swimming pool and a hot tub.
Third Avenue is on the route for several buses; also the C-Line Rapid Ride.
Great for the condo residents and their visitors to have bus stops right there, but one has to wonder how many will actually use it.
There is an 8-level parking garage with 373 parking spaces below the tower!
Looking up, standing on 3rd Avenue.
The City of Seattle has made great strides at keeping the downtown streets tidy and clean. There actually were cleaners out and about today with their three-wheel bikes fitted with large baskets with brooms and cleaning supplies.
The base floors of the building have these strands of cables fitted with disks of glass.
The First Light website says designer John Hogan’s “veil” of strung glass disks by the office floors diffuse the bland looks outside (parking garages and brick walls), and at the same time increases the privacy inside.
So yes: in the immediate vicinity of the First Light building (looking south down 3rd Avenue), the old parking garages and brick buildings do not offer a whole lot to look at.
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Monday/ a lot of gray ⛅

Enduring sightings of the sun, since spring had started here in Seattle, are still hard to come by, but we had 57°F (14 °C) today. The high might bump up to 67°F (19°C) tomorrow.

Late afternoon, I walked all the way down to the edge of South Lake Union, and back up to Capitol Hill.

Construction on the 45-story apartment towers at 1200 Stewart Street is still crawling to completion. It looks as if the glass windows and doors have been installed all the way to the top now, but the balconies on those upper floors still need rails and who know what goes on, on the inside.
After I have crossed Interstate 5 on the Denny Way overpass, I always turn around to look for the Space Needle.
There it is, hiding behind the Onni South Lake Union apartment towers (completed May 2022) at 1120 Denny Way.
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Sunday/ the Seattle waterfront 🌅

I took the G-line bus to Colman Dock (the ferry terminal) and the Waterfront late this afternoon, and walked up to Pike Place Market.

Hey! Three gray Teslas at the Madison Street & Broadway intersection.
(I had missed the G-line bus up at the 17th Avenue stop by a minute and now I’m walking down Madison Street to the stop on Boylston Avenue).
Now I’m at the Boylston Avenue stop, and looking back up along Madison Street to see if the bus is coming. Yes! there it is at the top of the hill. Can you see it?
I hopped off the stop at 1st Avenue near the waterfront.
I could not resist taking a picture of the beautiful The Federal Office Building nearby— constructed in 1932 and ‘an exuberant example of Art Deco architecture’, says Wikipedia.
At Colman Dock (Pier 52) now, and a look at the city skyline from there.
One of two blue herons on the rocks below catching a little of the last sunlight of the day.
It was sunny today, but definitely not warm— 50°F/ 10°C for a high.
Art installation on the waterfront promenade. I will have to look up the artist.
Here’s the patio by Old Stove Brewing Co. at Pike Place Market with its lovely overlook of Puget Sound’s Elliott Bay.
A Scottish band’s members are playing their drums and bagpipes for the crowd, but I don’t know the band’s name or if it was for a special occasion.
Vivid colors on the mural at the entrance to light rail’s Westlake Station downtown. A quick 4-minute ride from here gets me back up to Capitol Hill.
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Monday/ perfins 📌

A perfin is a stamp that has a name or initials perforated into it.
The word “perfin” is short for “perforated initials” or “perforated insignia”.
Perfins are used to prevent theft and control how the stamp is used for mail.
How are perfins created?
Individuals, organizations, or government agencies add perfins to stamps after the production process.
The holes are punched into the stamp’s design to create a pattern.
Source: Google Search Labs/ AI Overview

These are the only perfins I have found so far (among the thousands of stamps I have amassed for my collection and for my philatelic ‘research’ 🤗 ).
The U.S. stamp bottom left is also pre-cancelled. Pre-cancelled stamps were used for mass-mailings, making it unnecessary for the post office to cancel them, and expediting their processing.

1961 First Definitive Issue (New Design), South Africa
Issued Jan. 20, 1969
Perf. 13½x14 |Phosphor frame |Wmk. RSA tête-bêche
SACC282 |1c |Rose-red & sepia |Coral Tree Flowers (Erythina lysistemon)
Perfin initials “D.C.”

1982 Fourth Definitive Issue (Architecture), South Africa
Issued Jul. 15, 1982
Perf. 14 |Design: A.H. Barrett |Engraving: Arthur Howard Barrett |Litho. |Phosphorized paper |No Wmk
SACC524 |10c |Carmine brown |Pietermaritzburg Town Hall
Perfin insignia “C C C” (or possibly “V V V”)

1923 United States of America (U.S. Presidents and prominent Americans)
Issued Jan. 15, 1923
Perf. 11×10½ |No Wmk
Scott 562 A165|10c |Orange |James Monroe (5th U.S. President)
Perfin insignia “WFH”
Pre-cancelled “Chicago IL” 
[Sources: stampworld, South African Colour Catalogue 2023-25, Scott 2003 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue Vol. 1]

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Wednesday/ additions to my album 📖

Is a stamp collection— any collection— ever complete?
One can always add objects that are ever-so-slightly different than the ones already in there.

Check out these additions to my South African stamp album, which is already a complete collection of all the issues by the South African post office*.

*The years 1910 to 2020, when the last postage stamps were issued.
Iceland stopped producing postage stamps in 2020 as well, and Finland has indicated it may soon follow suit.

I don’t carry whole stamp booklets in my stamp album, but these cute “razor blade” booklets with the art deco-ish fonts on their covers fit into the narrow plastic pockets that normally carry stamps, and voila! they are now part of my collection.
“Post your letters during the lunch hour” instructs the booklet on the back. Cute— but in 2025 we don’t really have lunch hours and definitely no letters to put in the mail anymore; a time now long gone😔
I modeled this page on a preprinted page I found online, of German stamp album producer Leuchtturm (hence the German descriptions for the colors, which I kept as-is, just for fun).
For an unknown reason, this is the only stamp in the series with a “hatched up” version of the text on the stamp (the “RSA 4c”, made up of stripes that go up from left to right), as well as a “hatched down” version.
Are they really different stamps? Of course they are.
One more example of a slight variation in one of the issues.
The 30c stamp in this series was printed on phosphorescent as well as non-phosphorescent paper, and therefore the two versions are also different stamps!
(I only had a pair of these stamps— no singles— and I don’t break up pairs, so the pair goes into the album as-is).
All other stamps in the series were printed on phosphorescent paper only.
One needs a UV-light to see the difference.
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Sunday ☀️

I made it to Volunteer Park today, all bundled up.
It felt colder than the 42 °F (5 °C) reported on my phone’s weather app.

Volunteer Park with its Victorian-style greenhouse structure in the distance, modeled on London’s Crystal Palace.
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Thursday/ beautiful inside 🇺

It was my last day in Munich, and I ran out to Marienplatz one more time with the streetcar.
It was just about noon, and the glockenspiel* on the townhall’s clock tower played to a smattering of on-lookers that risked getting frostbite on their fingertips as they held up their phones to record a video of it. (I was one of them).
From Marienplatz I went to a few beautiful U-bahn stations on the U1 line to take pictures.

*The Rathaus-Glockenspiel is a large mechanical clock located in Marienplatz square, in old town Munich. Famous for its life-size characters, the clock twice daily re-enacts scenes from Munich’s history.

Here is a jousting scene depicted by the glockenspiel. One of the knights was mortally injured, and falls backward on the horse.
These enormous and dramatic lamp scones are at Westfriedhof on the U1 line.
Here’s a red one.
And I made this yellow one appear to sit on top of the SOS pillar.
On the far end of the U1 line is the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum station. There are huge metal studs that line the wall, creating a spaceship-futuristic look.
Nearby, and also on the U1 line, is Oberwiesenfeld station with a black and white tile pattern on the one side ..
.. and burnt orange on the other.
Candidplatz on the south end of the U1 line is painted in the colors of the rainbow.
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Wednesday/ snow on the ground 🌨️

It started snowing at around 8 am this morning here in Munich, but it could not have been more than an inch an or so, from what I could tell.

I used the Line 19 streetcar again to get Hauptbahnhof (the main train station), and from there, ran out to Odeonsplatz and a comic book store on Fraunhoferstrasse.

The view from my hotel room (using my phone’s 5x zoom to zoom in on the Deutsche Bahn train maintenance station) at 8 this morning.
Here comes the Line 18 streetcar, at Am Lok-schuppen station.
At Sendlinger Tor station, I stepped off the streetcar and went underground to the U-bahn.
(The sidewalk surfaces were treacherous with the snow and ice, and there were no pedestrian crossings to speak of. Then I realized that is the other use of any U-bahn station: it’s an under passage for pedestrians to get from one side of an intersection to the other).
Here is Odeonsplatz, named for the former concert hall, the Odeon, on its northwestern side. The church is the Theatine Church of St. Cajetan and Adelaide (German: Theatinerkirche St. Kajetan und Adelheid)— a Roman Catholic church. It was consecrated 11 July, 1675.
Taking a closer look at the heraldic elements in the center (the lions and the white-and-blue checkered pattern is taken from the coat of arms of Bavaria).
Here is the nearby Hofgarten (Eng. ‘Courtyard garden’), established in 1613.
Back inside the Sendlinger Tor U-bahn station. I love the giant white saucer-shaped light fixtures.
This is a comic book store called Comic Company near Fraunhoferstrasse station.
I bought used three comic books for all of Є8.40. More books to weigh down my luggage but hey, I was still 10+ pounds under the weight limit with both my suitcases when I checked them in at Cape Town.
By the time I hopped off the Line 18 streetcar close to my hotel, the snow had started to melt.
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Tuesday/ a cold day in Munich 🥶

I put on full kit and kaboodle this morning, before venturing out in the frigid weather. I limited my excursions outside to Hauptbahnhof and Marienplatz.
(The day started at -7 °C and the high briefly reached 0°C.)

The Line 19 street car stops almost in front of my hotel, at Am Lok-schuppen station.
I used it to run out the Hauptbahnhof (main station), and to Marienplatz. There is a ticket machine on the street car– very convenient, and only €11,10 for a Zone 3 day ticket.
There is not much of the Hauptbahnhof buildings visible from the street, because of a major construction-refurbishment project that is underway.
Marienplatz and its ‘new’ town hall. New is a relative term here. Marienplatz has been the city’s main square since 1158. I took this picture from inside the Hugendubel bookstore on the square.
Taking a closer look at the clock tower of the town hall.
Inside the U-bahn station by Marienplatz. This track serves the trains running on the U3 and U6 lines.
Here are the platforms at the Münchner Freiheit U-bahn station.
Now I’m back at Marienplatz, and the sunlight that had added a few degrees to the chilly temperatures is fading fast. So it is getting really cold again.
The iconic town towers of the Frauenkirche nearby Marienplatz. This church was constructed from 1468–1488.
Volt Germany is a social-liberal pro-European, eurofederalist political party in Germany.
A federal election will be held in Germany on 23 February 2025 to elect the 630 members of the 21st Bundestag.
Check out this poster.
LET’S TAKE BACK THE FUTURE— with a strong Europe against Trump and Putin.
Sunset here is at 4.48 pm. I have just stepped off the street car at Am Lok-schuppen station for the 3 minute walk to my hotel.