a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
I checked in at the Yodobashi Camera store in Akihabara today.
(No, I have not bought a new camera yet).
The store is a giant department store for all things technology, office, home appliances, home decor, toys & games, entertainment, and even more.
We had 36°C (97 °F) here in Tokyo today.
I put urban survival gear in my backpack (water bottle, towel, wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses) and made a run out to Shinjuku on the famous Yamanote Line after the morning rush hour on the subway trains was over.
My flight into Vancouver and the connecting flight to Tokyo went without incident.
It is muggy in Tokyo and by late evening it was still 82 °F (28 °C) with poor air quality, to boot.
Pictures:
Boarding the Bombardier Q400 turboprop that took us to Vancouver; Interesting mudflats and scenery below just before the descent (that’s the turboprop casing and exhaust in the picture);
Indigenous artwork at Vancouver airport (I didn’t make a note of the artist);
Air Canada jet amid lots of containers at Vancouver airport;
Boeing 787 from All Nippon Airlines at the gate at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport.
I am at the airport, and I made it through check-in at the long TSA Precheck line at checkpoint 4.
The airport is swamped with travelers. Even though the line is long, it’s still very nice to not have to take out anything out of one’s bag.
My bags are packed. I’m heading out to Tokyo tomorrow— a hop on the Air Canada turboprop Bombardier Q400 to Vancouver and then to Tokyo on All Nippon Airlines.
The weather forecast for my arrival on Tuesday is intimidating for a Seattleite used to gentler summer temperatures and weather: 99 °F (37 °C) with high humidity and a thunderstorm advisory.
These pictures are all from inside the National Neon Sign Museum in the former Elks Building in the heart of The Dalles downtown historic district.
The museum narrates the evolution of the electric sign, from pre-electric and gold leaf signage to the invention and widespread use of neon signs.
It houses one of the largest collections of neon storefront signs in the world.
Yes, neon signage has been in decline the last few decades, but many cities are now concerned with preserving and restoring their antique neon signs.
Fun fact— Argon is much more versatile than neon for creating colors, and some 75% of ‘neon’ signs actually has argon in the tubes and not neon. ‘Neon’ is the name that stuck for all signs that use either neon or argon.
Pictures:
That’s David Benko himself in one of the pictures, telling us about the history of neon signs. He established the museum in 2018, and is the curator— with a lifelong passion for collecting neon signs.
The museum has displays that show inventors and their experimentation with electricity in the 1700s and 1800s, the discovery of the noble gases argon (1894) and neon (1898) and a model of the patent for the first neon sign tubes that were created in 1910 by French engineer and inventor Georges Claude (the third picture).
By the end of the Roaring ’20s, most American cities were electrified. Illuminated streets and storefronts lured people into the streets at night time. The commercialization of neon signs took off in the 1930s after the Great Depression.
We drove back to Seattle via Interstate 5 on Thursday, and stopped at two superchargers on the way: the one at Hood River and the one at Chehalis.
Interstate 84 out of The Dalles runs through the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic area, offering beautiful views of the cliffs and forests along the river.
Three amigos in two Teslas drove down to The Dalles in Oregon on Wednesday.
(Two more amigos were in The Dalles already).
We made stops at Snoqualmie Pass, in Ellensburg, and at the Tesla supercharger station in Yakima.
Here are scenes from my visit to Hood Canal on Kitsap Peninsula with friends. We drove out there on Sunday via Gig Harbor and the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge, and took the Kingston-Edmonds ferry back on Monday morning.
Photos: Tacoma-Narrows Bridge; Hood Canal kayakers; meadow buttercups; Sunday’s sunset over the very north-end of Hood Canal; the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula, seen across a low tide level in Hood Canal; brown squirrel; bald eagle taking flight; on the Marine Vessel (ferry) Puyallup after leaving the Kingston ferry terminal; spotting the Kitsap Fast Ferry— with downtown Seattle towers and antennas in the distance, and against the backdrop of Mount Rainier capped with a lenticular cloud.
Here is a PSA* targeted at the drivers that park their cars illegally on the shoulder of the access road to Seattle-Tacoma airport.
(They wait there for arriving passengers that they are going to pick up, deeming it too much of a hassle to use the cell phone parking lot).
Well— you can stretch your legs in the cell phone parking lot, and it is actually a lot closer to the airport than that shoulder on the access road (by up to one whole mile).
Please use the cell phone parking lot.
*Public Service Announcement
Twenty minutes out of Bremerton, the lights cut out and they could feel the engines stop running. The lights came on a minute later, they said, and the ship’s alarm sounded twice before an announcer told passengers the ferry had lost propulsion and steering. Brace for impact, the announcer said.
There were 596 passengers and 15 crew members on the vessel.
Shortly after 8 p.m., passengers were being loaded onto Kitsap Transit fast ferries to be taken to Bremerton.
The last passengers were being offloaded shortly after 9 p.m.
– The Seattle Times, reporting that the ferry Walla Walla, headed from Bremerton to Seattle, ran aground around 4:30 p.m. Saturday in Rich Passage.
We landed at 12.00 pm— 20 minutes early, so we had to wait for our space at the gate to open up.
Then at baggage claim it took a while for the luggage to come out— but after that it was smooth sailing to clear customs.
I just had to stop at the Global Entry* kiosk for a face picture, and stand for a minute in a short line to show my passport to the customs official.
*A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States.
It’s a soggy morning here at Frankfurt airport.
I made it through the obstacle course of baggage checking, passport checking and security checking, and will soon board my flight.
I made the 4-hour trip on the Intercity Express train back to Frankfurt today.
I’m staying at a hotel here in the Frankfurt airport complex.
So in the morning, I can simply walk down to the departure hall to check my bags, and catch my flight home.
Karl-Marx-Allee is a monumental socialist boulevard built by East Germany (the ‘Deutsche Demokratische Republik’) between 1952 and 1960 in Berlin’s Friedrichshain and Mitte neighborhoods.
Life is short, art is long.
— John Ringling
Maybe I should extend my stay in Berlin so that I can photograph every single U-bahn station.
Three new stations were added just in the last year or so to the U5: Unter den Linden, Rotes Rathaus and Museuminsel.
It was still dark when we landed at Frankfurt airport. I had plenty of time to find the platform for my train to Berlin, and spent some time in the airport terminal before walking to the platforms at the train station.
The train to Berlin took four hours, with four stops along the way.
A sign inside the car said the train ran at 200 km/h (124 mph), but it can actually go much faster—with a maximum speed of 330 km/h (205 mph).
Deutsche Bahn’s Intercity Express (ICE) train rolling into the station at Frankfurt Airport. The train stops for only 3 minutes! Get on board if you’re not at the right car — you can always find your car and seat once you’re on the train. I had a reserved seat at the window in first class, and chased a guy with a general ticket out of my seat. (The car was not full, but if I didn’t sit in my reserved seat, I risk getting chased out of my seat as well as more passengers board at stations along the way). The Deutsche Bahn app also lets you ‘Check In’ to your seat. The ticket inspector can see that, and then he does not have to nudge you while you sleep, or bother you, to ask for your ticket.
My hotel is in the Tamboerskloof neighborhood in Cape Town.
Theses pictures from my self-directed architecture walk are all from Long Street or nearby.
That’s Table Mountain in the last picture, of course.
I’m back at Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport, and getting ready to travel to Cape Town.
Here’s my round trip that I made on Tuesday, with a few stops.
I thought to stop in downtown Pretoria and walk around a little bit around Church Square, but decided against it.
