Gallery – Page 5 – Willem's Planet

April 24, 2016March 2, 2018

Sunday/ Copenhagen sights

Here are some of my favorite pictures from Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Yes, the Danes are very friendly and laid-back, and they speak good English. Watch out for bicycles : they go fast, so do not step into the bike lane or cross it before looking both ways! The public transport is top notch. Even the buses have display screens for the routes, and the connections at the next stop.

16040329 sm — This is the Royal Copenhagen flagship store. Officially the Royal Porcelain Factory, it is a manufacturer of porcelain products and was founded in Copenhagen 1 May 1775 under the protection of Queen Juliane Marie.

16040430 sm — This building is on the corner of Studiestraede and Vester Volgade, but I could not immediately find the name of it.

16040431 sm — Porcelain displayed in an antique store.

16040447 sm — The new Axeltorv (Axel Square) towers are still under construction, but makes for quite a visual impact. ‘Copenhagen’s new landmark’ proclaims a sign on the construction fence. To the left is the is a circular building called the Circus Building, completed in 1886 to serve as a venue for circus performances. The last circus to use the building was in 1990, though. It now shows movies.

16040473 sm — Here is another building that I do not know the name of. I see the beautiful spires from a few blocks away, and then I just have to walk there and check out the building up close!

16040491 sm — This is the view from my 8th floor room in the Marriott Hotel on Kalvebod Brygge (literally “Kalvebod Quay”), a waterfront area in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen.

16040494 sm — I don’t have plans to go to the Copenhagen Zoo, but I love this bus, especially the polar bear.

16040500 sm — This is the main entrance to Tivoli Gardens : a famous amusement park and garden. The park opened in 1843 and is the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Klampenborg. It is still pretty chilly outside (45 F/ 6 C), but there were some brave souls out there on the swings, the roller coasters and dive bomber.

16040558 sm — Here is Hans Christian Andersen’s statue, looking toward the Tivoli gardens. He was a Danish author, a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, but best remembered for his fairy tales.

16040559 sm — The Scandic Palace Hotel is gorgeous. Check out the gold trim on the balcony rails. [From Wikipedia] Influenced by the Art Nouveau style, the red brick building was designed by Anton Rosen and completed in 1910.

16040563 sm — Here is a close-up of the copper-clad trumpeter statue in the previous picture. They stand on a pedestal in front of the Scandic Palace Hotel.

16040583 sm — This little gazebo-style tower is on Nytorv (English: New Square or New Market) – a public square in the centre of Copenhagen. It serves up Carlsberg beer. The tourist season is not yet in full swing (it has to get a little warmer first!), so the outside spaces are still empty and quiet.

16040586 sm — Care for a Danish butter biscuit? Might that be Margrethe II (queen of Denmark), deployed in the window displat? Probably not!

16040591 sm — Here is the clock tower of the Copenhagen City Hall (Danish: Københavns Rådhus).

16040597 sm — This is the rooftop of the Copenhagen City Hall. Check out the incredible detail in the coat of arms and the copper-clad figures

16040598 sm — Here is a Tesla that I spotted, actually making a very illegal U-turn. Hmm. The building in the background is the rebuilt (2013) headquarters of The Confederation of Danish Industry (DI). It houses several companies that do industrial design work. At night the white segments light up in patterns and in different colors.

16040612 sm — This is ‘The Crystal’ (completed 2001), the headquarters of Nykredit Bank. The founding of the bank date back to 1851, but this year in February 2016 Nykredit faced public outrage among their customers due to significantly increased service fees.

April 11, 2016March 2, 2018

Monday/ day trip to Düsseldorf

I took the Intercity Express (ICE) train to Düsseldorf today. The train is no slouch ! .. the electronic speed indicator in the cabin showed 297 km/h (185 mph), at times. It runs very quietly, and even with four stops, it took just an hour an a half one way. The train comes up all the way from Munich, Nuremburg, and then Frankfurt, on to Cologne and Düsseldorf, and its final stop is Essen. The one-way fare does not come cheap at €82, but hey : time is money, right?

IMG_3786 sm — Our train was ICE 820, and here it is, just arriving into Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof.

IMG_3793 sm — Here is the fleet of trains operated by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) . I see the ICE4 is supposed to top out at 250 km/h .. but our train went faster than that !

16040185 sm — The modest brick facade of the entrance into the Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof (main train station).

16040170 sm — The water is from the Rhine river (it is a canal connected to the river), the tower is the Rheinturm (Rhein Tower), and the weird white and brown buildings that look like they are about to tumble into the water, are apartments designed by architect Frank Gehry.

16040139 sm — The Rheinturm is a 240.5 meter (722 ft) high concrete telecommunications tower in Düsseldorf, capital of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Construction commenced in 1979 and finished in 1981.

16040146 sm — The view from the top of the Rhein Tower. The slanted windows enable views straight down : definitely not for sufferers of vertigo! You will pass out, looking down. The lines of colored light are reflections generated by the tower; maybe it helps the viewer align the view out there with the descriptions inside the tower, or they indicate a specific direction. The rectangular blocks piled on top of one another on the peninsula is a Hilton hotel.

16040180 sm — It really does not look as if there is ONE straight line in this apartment building. 1. I hope they paid the construction workers extra and 2. one has to wonder if the insides of the building, the rooms, follow the same kooky contours as the outside would suggest !

16040179 sm — Here’s the second of the three Frank Gehry designed buildings in the Neuer Zollhoff, as the area is called. Construction was completed in 1998.

16040166 sm — Check out the stainless steel used on the exterior of the shiny building, wedged in between the other two, so that it can reflect the colors in the steel. It looks (to me) like the exterior is holding up well, given that the building is now approaching 20 years of age.

16040168 sm — Is there one square or rectangular building in the entire Neuer Zollhof? Apparently not! These are offices of some kind, but I did not check the details.

16040123 sm — How about some very classic architecture from the Altstadt (old town)? I loved this clock tower on top of one of the buildings but did not make a note of the name of the building.

16040115 sm — And here is what the canal in Koningsallee (the king’s alley) looked like today. It is beautifully lit up at night, and full of color in fall. Check out the little stepping ledges on the sides of the canal. It is to enable ducks and waterfowl to get out of the water and onto dry land.

April 10, 2016April 11, 2016

Sunday/ the Palmengarten

I lucked out with an early check-in into the hotel on Sunday, so I could catch a few hours of sleep (did not get much on the overnight flight). By the time I woke up in the afternoon, there was not much time to go out, and besides, most German stores and buildings are closed on Sunday. So .. since it is spring and the Palmengarten botanical garden not far from my hotel in the west end of the city was open, that was a *natural* choice to make.

The Palmengarten botanical garden opened in 1871 and was an instant success with the public. It covers some 22 hectares (54 acres) and is one of the largest botanical gardens in Germany.

16040016 sm — I admired the complicated exterior and colored panels on this building for a banking group (KFW) on the corner of Bockenheimerstrasse and Zeppelinallee.

16040042 sm — This is the cactus collection in the greenhouse of the Palmgarten. It’s worth a trip just to go check out the desert and semi-desert displays : from South America, Mexico (picture), Northern and Southern Africa and even Madagascar.

16040065 sm — This is the Goethe garden and memorial in the Palmengarten. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a writer and poet, and born in Frankfurt in 1749. The words on the middle pillar says something like ‘Nature is the only book of which all pages offer high quality’.

16040068sm,jpg — One of the open spaces in the Palmengarten with another greenhouse, and the Frankfurt tower in the background.

16040072 sm — I’m sitting in front of a piece of the trunk of a giant sequoia redwood tree (hopefully from a fallen tree!). These sequoias occur naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

16040080 sm — A swan in the little lake in the Palmgarten.

16040093 sm — I love this tongue-in-cheek entrance to the Bockenheimer-Warte U-bahn station : a train car that crashed into the ground. (Or maybe not a good idea? .. it will scare off passengers?).

16040100 sm — This life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex is in front of the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History that I had visited on a previous trip, but not noticed. It must not have been there at that time, or I would have noticed it.

16040101 sm — And this is artwork nearby called Love Hate. (If you stand on the other side, it reads ‘Hate’). Yes : love and hate are sometimes two sides of the same coin, no?

April 4, 2016April 4, 2016

Monday/ in the nick of time

Kris Jenkins’ buzzer-beating 3-pointer won Villanova its second-ever national championship. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

There was an epic finish to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s annual basketball tournament tonight : Villanova defeated North Carolina 77-74 thanks to a game winning 3-pointer from Kris Jenkins in the 2016 National Championship game. The final points were made in the final second of the game. Check out the sequence of frames below, that shows the clock running down in tens of seconds, then the buzzer starts with the ball in the air, and it makes it through just before the buzzer stops. I guess the championship games are not called March Madness for nothing.

0 sec .. the buzzer starts — 0.0 sec .. game time is over. the buzzer starts, with the red lights flashing –

0.0 secs .. buzzer is on, the lights are still flashing –

0 sec .. the buzzer stops and the game is over — the buzzer stops and the game is over. The Villanova supporters erupt and storm onto the court, of course!

March 23, 2016March 24, 2016

Wednesday

Pictures from the aftermath of the attacks in Brussels, from the on-line edition of the New York Times. From another article in the NYT: A handwritten note on the makeshift memorial next to him said, “In the end, when you see what can be done in the name of God, it makes you wonder what is left for the devil.”

February 28, 2016March 2, 2018

Sunday/ Broadway, San Francisco

I picked up my rental car again today and drove up on Highway 101 from the airport through the city and onto Broadway. Man! There are plenty of one-way streets, stop signs, bus only and bike only lanes, and pedestrians to watch out for. Once I reached Broadway, I told myself : park the car now; you cannot ogle at everything and drive at the same time. I was shocked to actually find a parking space, but I did, and I could walk around a bit to explore Broadway and a few blocks close by.

IMG_3159 sm — Here is San Francisco City Hall, on Van Ness avenue. (Van Ness is the Route 101 on the map with Broadway). It is here where Harvey Milk was assassinated in 1978. Milk was an American politician who became the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California. Sean Penn played his character in the 2008 biographical film about Milk’s life.

IMG_3175 sm — Beautiful detail from the San Francisco Public Schools Building across the street and a block or two down from City Hall.

IMG_3192 sm — Street art off Broadway in an alley.

IMG_3193 sm — It’s up and down around Broadway (it’s where the famous crooked Lombard Street is, as well), and I hope the little white truck’s handbrake is on t-i-g-h-t. Check out the steps on the sidewalks.

IMG_3198 sm — There is some eye-catching painted artwork on this building as well.

IMG_3203 sm — The City Lights Books store has creaky wood-board floors, rooms with wooden book-cases inside, and a basement filled that smells musty, of yellowed book pages. It brought back memories of my grandfather’s study with the walls of old books on them.

IMG_3211 sm — The iconic Transamerica Pyramid Center was completed in 1972. (It faced lots of criticism during its construction, though). Check out the interesting green building just to its right ..

IMG_3217 sm — .. it is the Sentinel Building, completed in 1907 in the distinctive copper-green Flatiron style structure. (New York City has some of these buildings as well, and there is also one or two in Seattle).

February 27, 2016August 22, 2017

Saturday/ Golden Gate Park

Here are some pictures of Golden Gate Park and the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. I bought a Clipper card and learned how to use the ‘Muni’ transit system : a network of buses and historic streetcars, the Muni Metro light rail, and the famous San Francisco cable cars.

IMG_2971 sm — Here’s Union Square, looking west. Union Square got its name from the pro-Union rallies held there on the eve of the Civil War. The monument on the right is a tribute to the sailors of the United States Navy.

IMG_2989 sm — I love the colors and the ornate tiling on this building on Market Street, now housing an Old Navy clothing store.

IMG_3006 sm — I’m on the No 5 bus on the way to Golden Gate Park. The bear would be a reference to the one on California’s State flag, but I’m not sure what the Soviet star (?)’ that the little bear is painting means, or symbolizes.

IMG_3014 sm — These Victorian row houses are found on many streets in San Francisco. These ones are on McAllister Street.

IMG_3045 sm — This pagoda is in the Japanese Garden inside Golden Gate Park.

IMG_3028 sm — This open space with its weird trees, and the monument in the distance, are in the Botanical Garden inside Golden Gate Park. I did not go over and check out the monument.

IMG_3081 sm — The Haight-Ashbury, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets, has some really weird and attention grabbing store fronts!

IMG_3099 sm — Street art in the Haight-Ashbury. Watch out for the were-cat with the mean shadow.

IMG_3115 sm — The Street Market offers fruit and veggies from the fertile Central Valley close by, I’m sure.

IMG_3124 sm — Here is a vintage street car. It is at the corner of Van Ness and Market Street.

IMG_3126 sm — Golden Gate Park is a very large green space in the city. It is to San Francisco what Central Park is to New York City.

February 24, 2016

Wednesday/ around the Embarcadero

I took BART out to San Francisco to spend the day at my firm’s office in the Embarcadero. The Ferry Terminal is close by, and it was warm enough to enjoy the cool air and sunshine by the waterside during lunch.

IMG_2883 sm — This lunch place puts together top-notch bento boxes (lunch boxes) of Japanese food. I had teriyaki chicken, a spicy salad with lotus root, and carrot ginger soup.

IMG_2884 sm — This passenger ferry runs back and forth between Marin County (the the north of the Bay), and the Embarcadero.

IMG_2889 sm — Here is a late afternoon view of the San Francisco Ferry Building from the 17th floor of the Embarcadero Center 3 building.

IMG_2891 sm — A view slightly further to the west reveals a little bit of the Bay Bridge between the ‘classic’ 70s and 80s Embarcadero buildings in the foreground.

IMG_2900 sm — Here I am at the corner of California St and Front St, on the way to BART’s Embarcadero Station.

January 31, 2016January 31, 2016

Saturday/ weekend WSJ

I love newspapers, and even though I get the digital New York Times and two magazine subscriptions on-line, I still buy a paper paper from time to time. Here are some very cool pictures and articles from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal.

IMG_2469 sm — Yes, the Republicans are ‘upside down’ with Donald Trump being the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President. (The elephant is the mascot of the Republican Party. A donkey is the mascot of the Democratic Party).

IMG_2470 sm — Earpieces that will offer real-time translation are near, says this article. I suspect Afrikaans will not be one of the first languages available for translation. Probably : English-Mandarin-Spanish-Japanese-French-German?

IMG_2478 sm — Maybe we can all open our eyes and look at our retirement accounts and 401(k) accounts now, here in the USA, now that January is over? Friday was a good day for the stock market.

IMG_2471 sm — Check out these cool pods on the ice in the Antarctic. Maybe our little houses on Mars will look like this as well, some day?

IMG_2475 sm — Djokovic won the Australian Open 2016, beating Roger Federer in the semis and Andy Murray in the finals. This article explains why he is such a formidable opponent.

IMG_2476 sm — Yaroslavl is a Russian city, the one which Bernie Sanders and his wife went to for their honeymoon. (It is a city with which Bernie as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, established a sister-city relationship with).

January 24, 2016January 25, 2016

Sunday/ Seattle’s new street car

Our new First Hill street car (a train car that runs on the street) has finally started operating here in Seattle – two years later than originally planned – and we went for a jolly ride on it today to check it out. There are six street cars, with a cost about $3.7 million each, and they were manufactured in the Czech Republic. The street cars have batteries and can travel briefly off-wire (to avoid conflicts with bus wires here and there), which complicated the design and construction.

After we had arrived at Pioneer Square, we walked around for a bit and then hopped onto the Link Light Rail train close by took it two stops up to downtown Seattle, and then took a city bus from there back up to Capitol Hill. All very nice; one just has to be prepared to wait for a little while (as much as 15 mins) at the transfer points.

1 English sm — Here’s a map and details of the car from a promotional flyer published by Seattle Street Car.

IMG_2388 sm — Here’s the yellow car that we took from Broadway down to Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle. It had arrived at the final stop at Pioneer Square and is about to start back out again toward First Hill and Capitol Hill. The driver just switches to the cabin (there’s one on each end of the train) on the new ‘front’ end of the train.

IMG_2390 sm — Here’s part of Pioneer Square, the original old downtown Seattle.

IMG_2397 sm — This plaza is in Pioneer Square as well.

IMG_2393 sm — This is inside the Glasshouse Studio on Pioneer Square.

IMG_2417 sm — This is inside the Pioneer Square transit station that serves buses and the Sound Transit Light Rail trains (one just arriving; we are waiting for one in the opposite direction, though).

IMG_2425 sm — I walked down to Broadway again on Sunday afternoon and spotted this gold street car ..

IMG_2432 sm — .. and also this white one that says ‘little saigon’. There’s a hot pink street car and a sky blue one as well; and one more – that I don’t know the color of.

December 26, 2015December 27, 2015

Friday/ the Perth Zoo

We went to the Perth Zoo on Christmas Day, and here are my favorite pictures.

IMG_4983 sm — The black-necked stork is found in Northern and Eastern Australia. The sharp bill is used to impale frogs, fish or even large crustaceans in the water.

IMG_5054 sm — The blue-winged kookaburra is the largest of the kingfisher family and can live for as long as 20 years. They are found in North-west Australia.

IMG_4993 sm — Red kangaroos are the largest living marsupials, and found in the arid central parts of Australia. They are herbivores. The Western Grey kangeroo is smaller, and wallabies are smaller still.

IMG_5046 sm — This little nocturnal creature is the Northern Quoll, a carnivorous marsupial. (The enclosure is dimly lit with red light). They are under threat of extinction from eating the poisonous cane toads (a pest in Australia), and from falling prey to feral cats in the wild.

IMG_5048 sm — And here is a Banded Knob-tailed Gecko They are found in the Pilbara area – a large, dry, thinly populated region in the north of Western Australia.

IMG_5073 sm — The White Rhinoceros is NOT an indigenous Australian animal (of course). The beautiful beast was standing in the shade far away, and then lumbered over to come and take a few sips of the water, right in front of us, flapping its ears.

December 24, 2015December 24, 2015

Thursday/ the Bell Tower

The Bell Tower is touted as Perth’s top tourist attraction (think: Seattle’s Space Needle), and so I had to go check it out. The surrounding area is still a major construction zone though : the $400 million Perth waterfront redevelopment project has been three years in the making and is now at least two years behind schedule. (Mmm. Seems very similar to the Bertha tunnel boring machine & waterfront development project’s delays in Seattle!).

IMG_1421 sm — Here are the attractions close to the Esplanade station where we stepped off the train.

IMG_1455 sm — The Bell Tower’s sides are ‘sails’ .. a nod to Perth’s maritime history and connections as a port city, of course.

IMG_1448 sm — These bells are connected to a computerized jukebox. For a dollar, anyone can pick a song, and then the bells play the song. Several national anthems were offered as well – and so I picked the Star Spangled Banner, of course.

IMG_1439 sm — Here’s the view from the Bell Tower’s viewing deck northwards, of the city’s skyline. Three years in (work started in 2012), and there seems to be a long way to go with the work on the waterfront project.

IMG_1458 sm — The ‘cat’ bus offers free transportation around the city. CAT stands for Central Area Transit.

December 23, 2015December 23, 2015

Wednesday/ downtown Perth

IMG_1362 sm — It was still very warm on Wednesday (that 39 for Perth is Celsius and equals 100 °F !).

My brother and I made a jaunt into downtown Perth with the Transperth* train on Wednesday. Downtown is a mix of old and new buildings, with the tallest ones belonging to the giant multinational mining companies such as Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton. (Iron ore is the country’s largest export earner, and lost 43 per cent in market price this year as low-cost miners such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton pressed ahead with production to defend their market share).

*Part of the Perth public transportation network of trains, buses and ferries.

IMG_1310 sm — Our north-bound train is arriving at Bullcreek Station, on the way tp Perth downtown.

IMG_1355 sm — The Queen’s Building on Murray Street is right by the downtown train station exit. It was constructed just before 1900.

IMG_1320 sm — This is the Perth General Post Office building in the central business district. Construction commenced in 1914, and was finally completed in 1923. This is the precise location where distances from Perth are measured on maps and road signs.

IMG_1335 sm — This is still downtown. We’re making our way to the Western Australia Museum and the cultural center. I still have to go and check out the modern buildings visible at the far end of this street (one is a cobalt blue).

IMG_1344 sm — The Western Australia Museum is getting an expansion and renovation, with the ‘new’ museum slated to open in 2020.

IMG_1343 sm — Time for a ‘selfie’ in a reflecting metal outdoor work of art outside the museum.

IMG_1358 sm — A view of the Swan River on the train ride back (it forms a lake of sorts before it reaches the ocean). For nearly 40,000 years the area on which Perth now stands was occupied by groups of the Nyoongar people and their ancestors; this had been verified by the discovery of ancient stone implements near the Swan River which have been carbon dated at 38,000 years old. In December, 1696, three ships in the fleet commanded by de Vlamingh anchored off Rottnest Island and on 5th January, 1697, a well-armed party landed near the present-day Cottesloe Beach, marching eastward to the Swan River near Freshwater Bay. They tried to contact some of the Nyoongar to enquire about the fate of survivors of the Ridderschap van Hollant, lost in 1694, but were unsuccessful. Following this encounter, they sailed north, but not before de Vlamingh had bestowed the name Swan on the river because of the black swans he saw swimming there. Just over 100 years later, in 1829, Captain James Stirling founded Perth as part of the Swan River Colony.

December 20, 2015December 20, 2015

Sunday/ arrival in Hong Kong

I made it into Hong Kong airport late on Sunday night. My layover is so long (16 hours!) that I could leave the airport to go to the Novotel Citygate hotel nearby for some sleep before the fourth and final segment of my travels to Perth, Australia.

IMG_1081 sm — Here is pepper the personal robot, in the Softbank store in Tokyo station. (I want one). The robot ‘notices’ you as you walk up by looking at you, and the tablet on its (his?) chest offers all kinds of services. I selected some music and Pepper did a little wave with his arms and swaying of his head as the music played. Don’t touch! Don’t hug! says the sign behind Pepper.

IMG_1130 sm — I took the Narita Express, the shinkansen (bullet train) to Narita Airport. At Tokyo station, two sets of cars are connected before the train leaves .. the on-lookers are watching the other section of train approaching (slowly).

IMG_1166 sm — Display ad for a capsule hotel stay at Narita Airport. I should try that some time, not? These are not for the claustrophobic traveller, I am sure.

IMG_1177 sm — A larger-than-life anime character at the entrance of the Akhihabara electronics store in Narita Airport.

IMG_1185 sm — .. and a giant stuffed My Neighbor Totoro character from the classic 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Totoro is a friendly forest creature.

IMG_1194 sm — We’re on the runway at Narita Airport, and Hong Kong bound. It is an All Nippon Airlines Boeing 787 Dreamliner under the floodlights.

December 19, 2015December 19, 2015

Saturday/ shopping & sightseeing in Tokyo

Here are more pictures of my Tokyo experience from Friday and Saturday.

IMG_0784 sm — Mitsukoshi is a popular department store headquartered in Tokyo. At 10 am there was a long line of shoppers waiting for it to open .. and then they were warmly welcomed by the assistants are the door opened. I love the characters in the window. ‘Life is a gift’ says the slogan that goes with the pictures.

IMG_0802 sm — This display is in the WAKO Main Building, that houses a Seiko watch store among others. I ogled a US$2,000 Seiko Astron, a titanium watch with two dials : one for one’s home time zone, and another that syncs with GPS to the time zone that one has traveled to. Perfect for me, right? I resisted since I already have um, 4 Seiko watches.

IMG_0818 sm — Wow .. nice roof on this square koban (police box) building. Private ownership of guns is not allowed in Japan (imagine that!). The police do have guns, but don’t wear them, as a rule.

IMG_0838 sm — This is in Yodobashi Akiba, surely the world’s largest and fanciest electronics and appliances store. The shop assistant is getting two half scale Star Wars characters – Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper – ready for display. Each goes for about US$170.

IMG_0847 sm — Godzilla lives large in the Japanese monster imagination and the store offers many more varieties of creatures that are similar. Or maybe this is a modern-day Godzilla.

IMG_0854 sm — Don’t rush ! The gate is closing and the train begs the passenger to stop and wait for the next train. This is late at night, so not a lot of people around, but early Friday night I was in the fullest train EVER, one of those where we were pushed in like sardines. You cannot move your arms. Luckily my destination was just two stops away. ‘Excuse me, excuse me’, I said politely, and people spilled out of the train to let me out.

IMG_1015 sm — Tokyo Station’s 5½-year renovation was completed in 2012, in time for its 100 year anniversary in 2014. The station suffered heavy damage in World War II. This is the restored ceiling of one of the two domes in the station.

IMG_1035 sm — And here is the old main entrance. There is a much bigger modern entrance with an enormous white canopy and large JR Tokyo Station lettering on the opposite side of the building.

IMG_0964 sm — This is a new elevated and automated metro line (three years old), so the train has no driver. I am on the way to Odaiba (お台場), a large artificial island in Tokyo Bay. The bridge is the Rainbow Bridge.

IMG_0953 sm — And look! The Statue of Liberty* with the Rainbow Bridge now in the background. *A replica, of course.

December 18, 2015December 18, 2015

Friday/ the Ginza district

My Marriott Courtyard hotel is tucked into the 4th floor of a building just outside the upscale shopping area of Tokyo, the Ginza district. Here are some pictures of my walkabout there last night.

IMG_0790 sm — ‘We’re sorry!’ says the little picture after the ATM had declined my debit card. I eventually found an ATM that gave me cash; I should have gotten some Yen at the airport, though. Amazingly, Japan still transacts in cash. You put your cash in a little tray, and the change gets put back in it with your receipt, a little ritual. It does seem to me that most stores grudgingly accept credit cards and maybe they do so for me just because I am a foreigner.

IMG_0805 sm — Japanese porcelain maker Noritake has moved their store from Akasaka to the Ginza district, and I eventually found it. This set of mini serving plates is gorgeous! .. just a little pricey at US$240 for the set. And it’s not like I have 5 people over every other night at my house to serve up little tidbits to! (unfortunately).

Yes, it is Christmas in Japan as well. (Missing : the pervasive Christmas jingles playing in the stores the way we do it in US shopping malls). There are little Christmas trees lining the street in the Ginza district, with wishes of Merry Christmas in the windows, and a Happy Holidays here and there, as well.

IMG_4817 sm — I love this lit up creature – a salamander, maybe? – on the Bulgari jewelry store.

IMG_4827 sm — Lots of blue in the Fendi storefront, and check out the fluffy creature (from the Blue Lagoon?) in the window.

IMG_4828 sm — It’s just after 10 pm, and the Apple store’s employees are wiping away the days smudges from the demonstration devices in the store.

IMG_4832 sm — One of the flagship department stores, the Matsuya Ginza. By day there is a Japanese national flag (the red sun on the white) on a flagpole on top of the building.

December 11, 2015December 11, 2015

Thursday/ downtown Chico

I drove back to Sacramento airport on Thursday, taking Highway 99 (it runs through Chico). I would have loved to spend more time walking around Chico, or even to stop in Sacramento, but there just was no time for that. The airport is north of the city of Sacramento, so I did not get to see any of the California capital. Maybe next time!

IMG_0556 sm — The Madison Bear Garden is a sports bar and eatery in a historic building. The California State University of Chico campus is close by. A lot of the local economy is tied to CSU in Chico.

IMG_0557 sm — This is the Bidwell Presbyterian Church.

IMG_0562 sm — The Chico Museum is close by. The City of Chico was founded in 1860 by John Bidwell, a member of one of the first wagon trains to reach California in 1843. Chico was home to a significant Chinese American community when it was first incorporated, but arsonists burned Chico’s Chinatown in February 1886, driving Chinese Americans out of town [Source : Wikipedia].

IMG_0567 sm — Another church with interesting stained glass windows. I did not write down the name.

IMG_0595 sm — Back at Sacramento Airport, and this time I could take a close-up picture of the giant silly wed wabbit.

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015

Wednesday/ more Monterey

It was Veterans Day here in the USA, and we are saluted our war veterans around the country. I had time this afternoon to go check out the Monterey waterfront and walk up to Cannery Row and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

IMG_0272 sm — Here’s a view from the hiking/ biking trail that runs along the Monterey waterfront.

IMG_0302 sm — The Monterey Canning Company .. one of several now-defunct sardine canning factories. The last cannery closed in 1973.

IMG_0294 sm — Another touristy street scene in Cannery Row, the waterfront street where the sardine canning factories were located.

IMG_0309 sm — Here’s the Cannery Row Beer Brewing Company’s brick building.

IMG_0325 sm — This is the view from the public viewing deck on the outside of Monterey Bay Aquarium.

IMG_0340 sm — John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. Born in Salinas, he wrote about the Dustbowl and the Depression. His major works were ‘In Dubious Battle’, ‘Of Mice and Men’, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, ‘East of Eden’, and ‘Travels with Charley’.

IMG_0348 sm — Here is a serene Monterey Bay bathed in pinks and blues around 5 o’clock this afternoon as the sun was setting.

September 27, 2015September 27, 2015

Saturday/ Fort Flagler State Park

I joined Bryan and Paul at Fort Flagler State Park on Saturday where Paul’s RV trailer was parked. The State Park is basically located at the northeast corner of the big Olympic Peninsula.

Here is more information from Wikipedia : Fort Flagler State Park is a Washington state park on the site of Fort Flagler, a former United States Army fort at the northern end of Marrowstone Island.
Fort Flagler was a Coast Artillery fort. It was established in 1897 and activated on in 1899. The post was named for Brigadier General Daniel Webster Flagler, an American Civil War veteran who served as the Army’s Chief of Ordnance. The fort was closed in June 1953.
From Fort Flagler State Park, visitors can see Port Townsend to the northwest, the cranes at the Navy base on Indian Island to the west, and Whidbey Island eastward across Admiralty Inlet. Flagler Road (SR 116) terminates inside the park.

9-27-2015 3-03-36 PM sm — Here is the location of the State Park. I took the Edmonds-Kingston ferry to get there. There’s two islands : Indian Island, which is occupied by the Naval Magazine (storage of Navy munitions and providing other logistic support) and Marrowstone Island of which all of the northern part is the State Park.

IMG_9900 sm — This is the Edmonds to Kingston ferry crossing, on the way to Kingston (so the ferry in the picture is going to Edmonds).

IMG_9907 sm — Welcome to our humble abode! On the steps of Paul’s RV trailer in the Ft Flagler State Park’s trailer camp. It was sunny but not very warm (and we did roll out the awning mounted on the side of the trailer).

IMG_9909 sm — This is a view from the bluff to Marrowstone Point. There is a pebblestone ‘beach’ down there, and a rifle range that had been abandoned after Work War I, said the sign by it.

IMG_9911 sm — Here is what remains of one of the spots where heavy battery equipment was mounted (just about all of it removed and melted down as scrap metal during World War II). Fort Flagler, along with Fort Worden and Fort Casey, once guarded the nautical entrance to Puget Sound. These posts, established in the late 1890s, became the first line of a fortification system designed to prevent a hostile fleet from reaching such targets as the Bremerton Naval Yard and the cities of Seattle, Tacoma, and Everett.

IMG_9913 sm — A dugout that is part of a series .. this one called the William Wilhelm battery. OK!

IMG_9915 sm — This is inside a fortified outlook post. There are little lookout windows faced to the Puget Sound on the other side.

IMG_9905 sm — A fishing trawler of sorts, and assorted boats at the village of Marrowstone on Marrowstone Island.

IMG_9949 sm — Making my way back to the city, this time on the Bainbridge-Seattle ferry. It’s a little further south to drive but this ferry is bigger than the Kingston-Edmonds one. (So when there are lots of cars you have a better shot at making this one and not having to wait for the next one!).

August 28, 2015August 18, 2018

Friday/ more of Berlin

Here are some of my favorite pictures from all the places I checked into and checked out around the center of Berlin.

IMG_4514 sm — The Sony Center with its spectacular inside-outside partial roof is close to Potsdamer Platz. I read that the whole business of rebuilding Potsdamer Platz and awarding projects has been the subject of much controversy from the beginning, and still not everyone applauds how the district was commercialised and replanned.

IMG_4501 sm — Artwork on the manhole cover. I have to confess I cannot name all the structures on it .. just the Berlin TV Tower, the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag.

IMG_9256 sm — A subtle advertising poster showing the Brandenburg Gate and the Berlin TV Tower from the you-know-who beverage company !

IMG_9522 sm — I went through Gleisdreieck U-bahn station many times the last few days. I love the metalwork on the gate.

IMG_9349 sm — This plaque is of the House of Representatives building on ZImmerstrasse.

IMG_4526 sm — This picture is a propagandistic wall painting at the entrance of the Bundesministerium der Finanzen on Wilhelmstrasse, promoting socialism in the DDR. I took a series of pictures to capture the whole thing

IMG_4530 sm — .. and the final part of the picture.

IMG_4506 sm — Here’s my Reichstag building picture. As one can tell, it has been around a long time,(since 1894 actually), but was badly damaged in WWII and only fully restored with a new dome and all in 1999, so that it once again became the meeting place of the German parliament as the modern Bundestag.

IMG_4555 sm — Yes, yes, I know the Brandenburg Gate has been photographed a million times, but here is my fresh picture from Thursday night! The gate is an 18th-century neoclassical triumphal arch, and one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 [Wikipedia].

IMG_9502 sm — Let’s see .. four hazelnuts on top of six pillars .. what could that be? Billboard from chocolate maker Ritter Sport in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. ‘**Da kiekste, wa?’** is a local Berlin phrase. Translated into ‘authentic German’/ English it is: ‘Da guckst du, was?’/ ‘You’re looking, huh?’- as a reaction of the amazed/surprised expression on the face of someone else.

IMG_4603 sm — I love the pointy roof on this building close to Alexander Platz .. not sure what’s going on inside, though.

IMG_9472 sm — Here’ the U-bahn platforms at Alexander Platz. It also has an S-bahn (regional train) platform.

IMG_4587 sm — I was fascinated by the clean-up crew sucking up the trash out of all the spherical trash cans around Alexander Platz.

IMG_4597 sm — Here’s the outside of Alexander Platz. Formerly part of East Berlin, this town square certainly has not seen the money and effort poured into it that Potsdam Platz has, but this is being remedied right now to some extent.

IMG_4644 sm — Here’s the Berliner Dom, the Berlin Dome Church in the center of the city near Alexander Platz.

IMG_4641 sm — This is the Humboldt Box, a temporary ‘info pavilion’ (it looks so very German-engineered), to provide to public with information and updates about extensive construction and expansion in the Berlin city center around Alexander Platz, the Berlin Dome and the Rathaus.

IMG_4611 sm — The entire area around the stately old dame of the Berlin Rathaus building (town hall, completed in 1869) is under construction. They even have tunnel boring machine in place similar to Seattle’s Bertha boring machine, to extend the U-bahn network.

IMG_4665 sm — The modern building for the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station) opened in 2006, all glass and steel.

IMG_4662 sm — Artwork at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. See the man in the horse? And then there’s even another horse motif in the cover of the cylinder in the center.

IMG_9510 sm — I love this clock inside the Berlin Hauptbahnhof (main train station). I want one for my kitchen (maybe just a little smaller!).

IMG_9498 sm — Here is an ‘ampelmann’ (traffic light man) decorative lamp, invoking East Germany/ DDR nostalgia (is there such a thing?). This little man with the hat figure was widely used in traffic lights in the old DDR. After unification the DDR ampelmann figure proved so popular it was put into traffic lights all over the city.

IMG_4691 sm — This is the new building of the Deutsches Technikmuseum that opened in 2005. The old part of the museum is in a historic brick building. The two hours I spent there was much too short ! (I like the street sweeper machine cleaning the street ! .. can the city of Seattle buy a few, please?).

IMG_4698 sm — This is a 1942 Lufthansa airplane model (so must have been just after WWII) .. complete with the the frame that could hoist the engine up and out for maintenance,

IMG_4694 sm — I’m on the 4th floor looking down all the way to a wooden ship that was unearthed and rebuilt (I did not take notes of its age! Sorry ! and then almost at eye-level there is an old single man-copter.

IMG_9571 sm — This ‘cyclops’ automobile is a 1923 design. It had 6 cylinders and could do 95 km/h (60 mph).

IMG_9546 sm — How about this really retro desk telephone? Built by L.M. Ericsson & Co in Sweden in 1895 !

IMG_9543 sm — And of course I want one of these spherical TVs .. only a small number were made, and sold in Sloane Square, London, in 1970.

IMG_9530 sm — And this fantastic archetypical mechanical computing machine is a Z1 was built in 1938. It has an arithmetic unit, a memory unit and input and output units. The program that drove it was coded on punched tape.