a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
The three friends made their way back to Seattle today, taking an early 7 am flight out of Fairbanks on Alaska Airlines.
We made a brief stop in downtown Fairbanks today, and then headed to the The University of Alaska Museum of the North (the museum is on the campus of the university).
These pictures are from a four-hour roundtrip drive on Alaska Route 3 South— from Fairbanks to the Denali National Park Visitor Center.
It’s fall here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the three friends from Seattle made it out to Fairbanks, Alaska, for a long weekend.
Top to bottom: Stepping on board in Seattle; a glacier somewhere over Canada; approaching Fairbanks— and noticing fall’s colors in the woods; a bear at Fairbanks airport; the view from our rented cottage, some 15 miles outside Fairbanks.
Two two-lane bridges (Canoe Pass Bridge and Deception Pass Bridge) on Washington State Route 20, connect Whidbey Island in Island County, to Fidalgo Island in Skagit County in Washington State.
The bridges opened on July 31, 1935.
[Source: Wikipedia]
These pictures of the Canoe Pass Bridge were all taken from Pass Island, looking south. The pictures were taken around 4.15 pm. The Salish Sea is to the west, and with high tide at about 6.48 pm today, the tide from the Pacific Ocean was still coming in.
Here’s the Norwegian Bliss just leaving the pier in Seattle and setting sail for Sitka, Alaska, shortly after 5 pm this afternoon.
She will go as far as Juneau and then to Icy Straight Point 30 miles across the Alaskan Inside Passage, before turning back to Seattle.
Located in the northeast corner of the park at an elevation of 6,400 ft (1 950 m), Sunrise is Mount Rainier National Park’s highest visitor center.
It is only open from early July to early September.
The butterfly is a mariposa copper (Lycaena mariposa), and on the log is a Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) and a Townsend’s chipmunk (Tamias townsendii).
Happy Labor Day.
My friends and I made a round trip across Puget Sound today:
crossing with the Seattle-Bainbridge Island ferry, driving to Silverdale REI* to pick up a tent, and returning on the Bremerton-Seattle ferry.
*Outdoor recreation gear and equipment store
My friends are gearing up for hiking on Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail— and so a visit the the flagship REI store in Seattle’s South Lake Union was in order for today.
Some of the purchases: water bag and microfilter system, powdered eggs, shredded beef with beef broth in a pouch, energy bars, Mount Rainier Wonderland Trail map, waterproof compression bag (keeps clothes dry), pressure-regulated pocket-sized gas stove, isobutane fuel cartridges.
Happy Friday.
This weekend is the last hurrah of summer travel for many families.
Kids in California are back in school already, and kids in Washington State go back next Wednesday.
Happy Friday.
I took this ‘funhouse mirror’ picture 8 years ago (Aug 16, 2015) at the EXPERIMINTA Science Center in Frankfurt, Germany.
I found this feline at the West Exit of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo during my recent visit there (stills from a giant video screen).
The entrance to the Studio Alta building right next door is one of world’s famous rendezvous points.
Some 3.6 million people pass through Shinjuku Station every single day.
Our flight out of Tokyo made it in to Vancouver on time, and it was a breeze to clear passport control.
‘Welcome to the United States’ said the sign— even though I was clearly still in Canada. (I guess the departure area can be seen as a consular area belonging to the United States. Americans bound for the USA with a connection in Canada, clear passport control and customs in Canada).
For the flight to Seattle, our airplane was running 1½ hours behind schedule, but we got in a little after 7 pm Pacific Time.
Home, sweet home.
Happy Friday.
I ran out to Ginza district one more time, to take a few night pictures. The schools are out for the summer break here in Tokyo, and the train stations were even more crowded than they had been all week.
It was already past 8 pm, but the trains were still full of salarymen* in their white shirts and black pants, making their way home.
*A salaryman (サラリーマン, sararīman) is a salaried worker. In Japanese popular culture, this is embodied by a white-collar worker who shows overriding loyalty and commitment to the corporation where he works [Wikipedia]
Pictures:
The Seiko clock tower on the Wako specialty store, a famous Ginza landmark;
Mitsukoshi Ginza department store kitty corner from the Wako building, with the Matsuya Ginza store a little further down;
Uniqlo’s flagship store in Tokyo, on all seven floors (a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer).
We did a quickie return trip today on the shinkansen from Shinagawa Station to Shin-Yokohama Station, and back.
It took all of 11 minutes to get there.
It would easily take twice that amount of time with the regular train— or by car.
This is the Nozomi N700— the ‘New 700’ series that had gradually replaced the 300, 500 and 700 series sets.
(The N700S entered service in 2020 with plans to eventually replace all N700-series trains).
This train is operated with 8 cars per train set, and it has a maximum speed of 300 km/h (186 mph). The N700 also accelerates more quickly than the older 700 series trains, with a maximum acceleration rate of 2.6 km/h/s.
That means it could attain its top speed of 300 km/h in just under two minutes.
Here are pictures of our round trip bus tour to Mount Hakone and Lake Ashi in Kanagawa prefecture.
It was another 36°C (97°F) here in Tokyo, and we ducked into a department store every block or two as we walked around the streets of Ginza— Tokyo’s famous up-market shopping, dining and entertainment district.
Pictures:
Ginza subway station’s fancy decor gives a hint of what’s to come above-ground;
Stylish dressers and parasols, at the Koban (police box) station in Ginza;
Architecture along Matsuya-dori (street);
A misting station offering a little respite from the heat;
Cupid looking to make mischief, at the Vacheron Constantin watch store;
Fancy window display.
We made a run back to the Uniqlo store in Akihabara to return & exchange clothing items for larger sizes there.
Behind the RECOfan record store nearby, there is a mini-mall of display cases filled with figurines for serious collectors.
Some items run into several thousands of yen (several hundreds of dollars).
The first picture is a reminder to passengers not to go onto the tracks to retrieve items that may have been dropped there. Well, these days there are safety barriers and doors in place (see the edge of the picture) that would prevent passengers— young and old— from dropping items onto the tracks in the first place.
We had dinner tonight at a restaurant near Tokyo Skytree.
We were a party of five: I, my brother and sister-in-law, and two of their acquaintances from South Africa.
After failing to find a ramen place that Google maps reported to be nearby (but it was not there), we settled on an American-style restaurant called Sizzlers.
The Marunouchi Line runs in a U-shape between Ogikubo Station in Suginami and Ikebukuro Station in Toshima.
I took it from beautiful Tokyo station (first two pictures) to Shinjuku station today. (Got to love the graphic posters that warn of the dangers of trying to board a departing train).
