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

 

 

Japan (2) Some more pics (Kawagoe)

I already made many pics, but still couldn't find the time and energy to post some. Also sorting out and categorizing all the pics cost quite some time, especially when you take many pics.

Since our last trip from October 22nd until October 29th (see for a little more details my former post) we didn't exactly sat still. We made trips to Niigata-prefecture, where we stayed in the city of Murakami (yes the same name as the author, also using the same Kanji characters).

From last Sunday until last Wednesday I went to Hiroshima, where I visited Miyajima and Iwakuni. On the nighttime after dinner I spent my time at my favorite pub, not only in Hiroshima but in whole Japan, the Mac Bar until the late hours, drinking beers, talking with some locals and other foreigners and listening to good music.

Before I went to Hiroshima, my wife N. and I went to Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.

Last Friday we went to the Tokyo Bay area where we visited Miraikan, the national museum of emerging science and innovation (official name). A very interesting museum and fun for kids, we also saw Asimo, the humanoid robot. After that we went to ramen-street at the Odaiba Aqua shoppingcentre, a shopping and eating mall. Ramenstreet is a part in the building where 5 or 6 ramenshops are located together and every ramenshop is presenting a certain ramenstyle from somewhere in Japan. Ramen is probably my most favorite Japanese food, although not the most healthiest Japanese food, but way better than a menu at a fastfood restaurant. After eating ramen, we went to Akihabara, also known as electric town.

Yesterday I slept in and relaxed most of the day. Late in the afternoon we both took a Chinese massage and after that we went to a music bar to see one of my wife N's friends who sings for a hobby and was performing there with a jazz combo.

Today we went to the nearby shrine to see the Shichi-Go-San festival (7-5-3- festival), a festival day for girls of three and seven year old and three and five year old boys. It's an interesting and very photogenic festival with all those cute and adorable little kids dressed up in their kimonos. I made some nice pictures there. Last week at the Meiji shrine I also took some pics from the same festival. In later post I will show some examples.

But because this is a photo weblog I'm also suppose to post some pics. I have decided to start posting the pics a bit in a more chronological order. Collecting all the background information cost sometimes a lot of time and when I stick to one trip or subject I don't need to search for so much different background information.

But be prepared, because I took lots of pics and it's sometimes hard to reduce the selection. In this post I will post pics from our trip to the Kawagoe festival. Kawagoe is a city near Tokyo. These festivals in Japan are often very colourful and very photogenic. There are all kinds of food stands, parades, gorgeous floats etc...

I have enough material to fill many Japan related posts, so there surely will be some more Japan posts. So I would say take a coffee, tea or whatever you like, lean backwards and enjoy the pics.

(click on the pics to enlarge)

unfotunately this pic was a bit moved

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) (3)

The International Filmfestival Rotterdam (IFFR) is finished. My task is accomplished. I watched 33 films in ten days. I know it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. It was a good festival. Most of the movies I watched were worthwhile. Today after I slept in I slowly had to adjust to my regular daily life. I had square eyes after seeing all these movies and I had withdrawal symptoms. But I'm doing okay now. I guess I probably won't see any movie this week. But although some people might see this as a punishment to watch 33 movies in 10 days, it wasn't a big burden for me. I've enjoyed it and saw some nice, gorgeous, funny and interesting movies.

Thursday my girlfriend and I stayed in a hotel for one night, because we had two movies on Thursdaynight and Fridaymorning we also had two movies together and the first one was starting at 9:45 A.M. So to avoid the early train during rush hour we decided to check for a hotel on the internet. We went to Rotterdam in the afternoon to check in at the hotel first. It was a very nice and clean hotel with good facilities and not too expensive. And breakfast was included, which is not so common anymore these days, I found out when I was checking hotels on the internet. Most hotels charge about 17 Euro for one person extra (about 20 Dollar) for breakfast. The hotel was on walkable distance from the trainstation and not too far from the different movietheatres. If you ever visit Rotterdam, this hotel is highly recommended. Our first movie started at 7:00 P.M. we had to take dinner a bit early. Because of our good experiences one week earlier, we went back to Sumo again. Because we entered the restaurant before 5:00 P.M. they charged us the price for a lunchmenu. We had the all you can eat dinner, but this time we only paid 16 Euro 50 each for a menu instead of 19 Euro 50 last time. A very good deal.

Anyway let's go to the rest of my movielist and my ratings. In my former post you can see how the rating works. You can click on the movietitle again to read an English description of the movie. At the end I have posted a few more pictures of Rotterdam on the day- and nighttime and from Sumo.

Betelnut (+)
It doesn't happen very often, but I left this movie after about 50 minutes. If the director's goal was to show boredom he succeeded very well, but the result was not interesting enough to watch for almost two hours.

Still Life (+++1/2)

Paprika (++++)

I don’t want to sleep alone (++++)

Weed (+++1/2)

Aachi & Ssipak (++++)

Nightmare detective (+++1/2)

The Killing of John Lennon (++++)

Lost in Tokyo (+++1/2)

Western Trunk Line (++++)

Day Night Day Night (++1/2)

Retribution (++++)

After This Our Exile (++++)

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)

Since Thursdaynight I spend a lot of time at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The IFFR wil finish on Sunday February 4th. This year I will set a record by watching 33 movies(!!!). When my mother heard that I was going to see 33 movies she said yuck. Actually she said something else, but this is a proper and decent weblog (wink).

I saw 2 movies on Thursday, 5 on Friday and 5 today (Saturday). So 12 down, 21 to go. Here you can check the festivalprogramme. The festival has a wide range of different movies from all over the world. My main focus is Asian cinema, so the most movies I normally watch at the IFFR are from China, Japan and South Korea and sometimes from Taiwan, Malasia, Thailand (this year a lot from Hong Kong) depending on the supply. That doesn't mean that I try to watch all. It also depends on the subject/story of the movie. The IFFR always has a wide and interesting range of movies from the Asian region. But I also watch movies from other countries if I find the reviews/descriptions interesting or appealing. I always have to make a selection. On my first longlist for this year I had 45 movies, so on my final list of 33 movies I had to skip 12 . The agony of choice (me in my ironic mode). Later I might post a list af the movies (with links) and my ratings.

Last Friday my girlfriend joined me with the last movie at night. Before the movie we had to kill almost three hours, so we went out for dinner. I also could use a break after four movies. We went to a place called Sumo, a Japanese (Chinese management) restaurant with three parts, a teppanyaki part where the food is prepared in front of you on a iron plate (teppan in Japanese, yaki means baked/grilled), a set of tables where you can eat à la carte and a part where they offer all you can eat. We reserved a table at the all you can eat part. For just 19 Euro 50 (about 15, 16 Dollars) you could order anyting you like, from all kinds of sushi, dishes like yakitori, tempura, different types of udon and some ricedishes and other small dishes. The sushi wasn't the best we ever eat, but still more than reasonable with an extreme good price/quality ratio related to the all-you-can-eat-concept. The yakitori and beef dishes were nice, but the udon was so so good. The (young) staff was very friendly and helpful. Surely a place to go back. The pictures below were taken by my girlfriend.

Some delayed pictures

Here are some more pictures from our last visit to England around New Year, as I promised.

Meet Noodles, my friend's cat, a bit of a chicken-cat, but cute and funny.

And this is Sushi, a less chicken than Noodles and very playful.

A part of the church belonging to the tower from my former post.

And a detail from one of the sides of the tower

This was our New Year's Eve dinner, soba noodles, very yummy.

Compared to Holland the fireworks was minimal, but there was some nearby. I manage to shoot this picture without a tripod. The first time my friend from England experienced the fireworks in Holland at midnight, he thought that World War 3 broke out.

For some reason I always have to think of Mr. Bean when I see a Mini

This picture and the next three were taken at my friend's parent's place, a small countryside village in Devonshire, which name I forgot

On our last night we went to a nice Indian restaurant in my friend's hometown Weston Super Mare.