I've mentioned before how much I adore the rules governing how much weight normal passengers are allowed to take on planes. When I turned up at the airport, pretty done in after my journey to the airport from leaving Eri, I was pretty sure that my bags were going to be a little over the limit...not surprising when leaving after six years. In the end, they weighed about 40kgs, 20kgs over the limit. The nice lady at the check-in told me that it would cost 50,000円, just from Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur. I would presumably be charged again in KL for the next day's flight to London. So it was that I ended up checking in wearing a pair of shorts, 3 pairs of jeans, 4 t-shirts, 2 sweaters, a hoody and my winter jacket, with an external hard-disk in each of 3 pockets and a polaroid camera in the last. It was 36 degrees. The woman at the security checked cocked an eyebrow when she saw me having to pull down 2 pairs of jeans to get at my passport. She asked why I was wearing so many clothes. I informed her that I had been told that Malaysia was very cold at this time of year. She laughed and went to get one of her co-workers to tell him about the stupid foreign bloke who thought that the equator was cold. I swear, if you were a terrorist, you could do worse than to masquerade as a stupid, overheated, foreign bloke, dedicated to making a tit out of himself.
Continue reading 'Kuala Lumpur'
Leaving Eri and, to a lesser extent, Japan, was the most difficult thing I've ever done. We went out that evening to do some last minute shopping and then to visit the 8bitcafe - a cafe in Shinjuku dedicated to the 8bit era of video games, with Famicoms and Master Systems to play. It was really nice, as was the expensive hotel, but we weren't really in the mood. Anyway, after that glowing introduction, here are some photos I took...
Continue reading 'Last Day'
What with my manic attempts to move out of my flat by tomorrow, I haven't had time to post much recently, so here are some of the Contax shots I've had developed recently. I like these shots. I think of any film I've taken with the T2, this film probably had the highest proportion of decent pictures. Not that that was to do with anything more than luck, but still, nice to get.
Continue reading 'Recent T2s'
I found out a while ago about the Skydeck on the 54th floor roof of the Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills, and have been wanting to go up there ever since. Eri and I actually went there a few weeks back, but the threat of lightening was enough for it to be closed to the public. Yesterday though, it was open and we finally managed to get up there. Having carried around my tripod all day, I was intensely annoyed to find out that tripods were not allowed up there, along with bags, hats, and various other "dangerous" items. I actually saw one girl with her Vuitton bag in one of the Roppongi Hills clear plastic safety bags (obviously it was too valuable to be stashed in a locked), but the sight of someone being allowed to carry a bag only when safely encased in another bag amused me & Eri no end. The view from the top was pretty stunning, although it was a little shocking to see how much more of the pollution you can see from that high up - from below it all just looks like high clouds. The lack of a tripod did make some of the photos a little less clean than they should have been, but they were alright in the end. The sky-aquariuuum (to quote the security guard), was also fun, but not as fun as the girl I was standing next to at the top of the tower, with her (no doubt, long suffering) boyfriend. Seeing a dark black area on the ground between Roppongi and Shinjuku (it was Yoyogi Park), she asked her boyfriend if it was an ocean or just a sea. Her boyfriend sighed and replied that it was a park...a forest. She laughed and called him a liar, and asked again. Then she said what must be the stoopidest thing I have ever heard - pointing to Shinjuku (less than 10km away, across the "sea"), she asked how far it was to "America". The boy sighed again, looked down as if yet again weighing up the merits of a quick leap to suicidial peace, shrugged and led her off, presumably for a geography lesson (or a bit of domestic violence). Young love.
Continue reading 'Skydeck'
Unlike in England, where we have stupidly decided to have our fireworks season when it is bloody cold and miserable in November, here in Japan (and pretty much every other sensible country), summer is the season for sitting out with friends, and getting pissed under the fireworks. Yesterday was the big display along the banks of the Edo River, one of the biggest in Japan. To be honest, I was a little bit disappointed by the actual display, the firework hearts were nice, as were the Doraemon faces, but I reckon Ravenscourt Park's Guy Fawkes night display was better. The evening though was very nice. There was a really nice breeze along the river so it was nice and cool, unlike the sweaty evenings recently, and despite there being 1.3 million people there, I managed to get to the Portaloos quickly and easily, which is, afterall, the most important thing. Here are some photos from the night - all the photos I took of the fireworks were crap. Very annoyingly.
Continue reading 'Edo River Fireworks'
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