New Japan pics (Hiroshima)

With new pics I mean pics that haven't been published before on this weblog. The pics below were taken a year ago during our visit to Japan. They were taken at the city of Hiroshima. I've posted about Hiroshima before (check: here and here). As most people probably know Hiroshima was the first city in history on which the first atomic bomb was dropped. Besides the Peace Memorial Museum and the monuments in the Peace Memorial Park there is not much that reminds directly to that horrible event on August 6th 1945. Nowadays Hiroshima is a vibrant city with good food places and a nice nightlife.

From my 11 visits to Japan 5 or 6 times I've also visited Hiroshima. For several reasons it's one of my favorite cities in Japan. First there is this fascinating and horrifying history. And I have some friends living there, the good food (Hiroshima is famous for it's okonomiyaki) and my favorite pub in Japan can be found here. If I have the time and chance I always try to make a few day visit to the city. In and around Hiroshima are enough and good sightseeing places. And on the night time I always go to my favorite pub after dinner. The owners Mac and Yuri are very friendly and laid back. The bar has a good mix of locals and foreigners, so there is always someone to talk to. The bar is open all night and another, for me important, plus is Mac's impressive music collection and they're always glad to grant your musical requests and they seldom disappont you.

In my former postings about Hiroshima all the pics were taken during the daytime. For quite some time I wanted to take pictures of the A-bomb Dome or Genbaku Dōmu in Japanese at night. This building is the only left and tangible memory of the nuclear blast that hit Hiroshima in the morning of August 6th 1945. If you see pictures of the A-bomb Dome and it's surroundings short after the blast it's surprising how much of the building survived the blast, also if you know that the detonation was almost direct above the building.

I can't explain the strange and ambivalent attraction I experience at places like this. A very bloody and atrocious part of modern history was written here and no matter how often I visit here (and I visited here every time I went to Hiroshima) it never leaves me untouched and standing at this place always send some shivers up my spine. If you want to read about Hiroshima short before the dropping of the bomb and the effects on the city and it's survivors I can recommend the manga (comic) books about Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa based on his own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor.

Normally I would say enjoy the pics but at a place like this I guess that wouldn't be appropriate.

(click on the pics to enlarge)

 

 

 

 

Same as previous but now with special B/W settings

 

 

Bavaria part 9

Well this is going to be the last posting with pics from our Bavarian trip last year August. This time some pics from a daytrip we made to Herrenchiemsee, a palacecomplex on the island Herreninsel (gentleman island) in the middle of the Chiemsee a freshwater lake. The "Neues Schloss" (New Castle) is the most famous building and was build by order of Ludwig II. But when he died in 1886 it wasn't finished yet. From the total of 70 rooms, 50 rooms were unfinished.

The palace was also suppose to be some kind of monument to show Ludwig's adoration of Louis XIV and was meant to be an equivalent of the palace of Versailles. It is also called the Bavarian Versailles.

From Munich we took a train to Prien am Chiemsee. This traintrip didn't went so smooth, because thanks to the wrong information of some Deutsche Bahn staff member we first ended up in Salzburg, Austria. We lost three to four hours which left us less time to spend at Herrenchiemsee. At least we managed to get some Mozartkugel (not the original ones, because we didn't had enough time). It took some time but we managed to get the right train from Salzburg to Prien am Chiemsee.

From the station there was a steamtrain running to the small harbour from were we could take a boat to Herreninsel to visit the palace.

Unfortunately the weather was a bit grey, so most of the pics are a bit less animated then the pics from part 8.
On the way to Herreninsel by boat you pass Fraueninsel (woman island) a smaller island at Chiemsee.

The gardens and fountains in front of the main palace show a lot of similarity with those of Versailles.

The Great Hall of Mirrors is one of the highlights of the tour. It was not allowed to take pictures inside, so I had to shoot this one from the hip. That's why it is a bit moved. You can compare it a little bit with the original here.

The official website can be found here. And here you can download a brochure (PDF).

Bavaria part 6 (Update)

One of the worst flu's I had in decades and a very busy job made that my planned catching up postings were delayed a bit more than I planned short after the start of the New Year. This heavy flu kept me in bed for 8 days.

Anyway, here is the first real posting of the New Year.

First some left pictures from our Bavaria trip last year August. After this posting I think I'll have pics left for two or three more postings before I'm done with our Bavaria trip. Then I have pics from a daytrip to Maastricht and a daytrip to the zoo and some pics from some kind of art meets science exhibition that I visited last November, plus pics from our four day trip to Vienna, Austria. So there is plenty to post.

This time some pics from our visit to Nymphenburg Palace at Munich. The official website of Nymphenburg Palace can be found here.

An update with a little more backgroundinformation about some of the pictures will be posted as soon as possible.

For now enjoy the pics.

(Update)
As promised, a bit later again as planned, a little update on this post with some backgroundinformation about some of the pics.

The main entrancehall of the palace

A part of the ceilingpaintingsA few paintings from the Gallery of the Beauties and one of the highlights of the palace (IMHO). An interesting collection of women, although girls would be better, because all of them were under 21, which were considered beautiful by Ludwig I and painted by Joseph Stieler. Interesting was that some of the portrayed women were not of noble blood, which caused a lot of drama at that time. Some of the women were Ludwig's mistresses. I must admit that Ludwig I had good taste, because some of the portrayed women were very gorgeous.
We were not the only one having a good time at the palace and it's park. You could make nice walks around the huge park and visit some of the pavilions which are spread around the park.
The Pagodenburg , a pavilion with European and Chinese decorative elements as you can see on the picture below.
A part of the interior of one of the rooms at the Badenburg.
At the former royal stables there is a carriage and sleigh museum which contains an extended collection of historical state coaches, gala coupés, ceremonial sleighs and gala equipment from the Bavarian rulers including some of the over the top, extremely decorated coaches and sleighs from Ludwig II.
A painting from Ludwig II during one of his nightly sleighrides, which he often seemed to do.

Bavaria (part 3)

Didn't had time yet to update the backgroundinformation from the pictures of my previous post. It's coming, but it takes a little more time. Here are some new pictures from our last trip to Bavaria, Germany. For these pics there also will be an update with some more detailed backgroundinformation. What I can tell right now is that these pics were taken at Burghausen and Hohenschwangau Castle. Enjoy!

(Update)
The first three pics are from the old city centre of Burghausen. The first one is just a funny sculpture. The second one is a sign with a kind of abstract devil on it. It says Cabaret des Grauens, which means something like Cabaret of horrors, but it sounds more scary than it is, because it's just a local theatre. The third one is a picture from the "Stadtsaal", another local theatre.

When we we're staying at our friend Frank's place (who lives in Burghausen) he drove us around to some sightseeingplaces. Besides Passau, which was our arrival city by train (see for some pics of Passau part 2 of my Bavaria postings) he took us mostly to places that were related to the Bavarian King Ludwig II, because my wife N. wanted to visit most of these places. She has a more than average interest in this fairytale king who is also known as the "Swan king" or the "Mad king". I'm not sure if he was really mad or was just an oversensitive person whou couldn't deal with the stress that was involved with his kinghood and was also struggling with his homosexuality all of his life. Fact is that he was a tragic figure in my opinion.

The Italian director Luchino Visconti made an interesting movie about the life of King Ludwig II. The fully restored over 4 hour version gives a very good impression about his life and courtlife in 19th century Bavaria. The movie was shot at original "Ludwig"-locations, like Hohenschwangau castle, Neuschwanstein castle, Linderhof palace etc...

Below you can see some pictures that were shot at and around Hohenschwangau castle. Pictures from the other castles and other "Ludwig"-locations you can see in later postings of our Bavarian trip. On the last picture you see a far away shot from Hohenschwangau castle that was taken on the way to Neuschwanstein castle.