Tag Archives: cityscape

29th May – 2nd June 2013: San Juan & Alicante (Spain)

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San Juan de Alicante is a small village in the east of Spain. It does not really have much by my parents use it as a base for my father’s diving trips. I sometimes tag along. We usually drive there and believe it or not, I found the Windows XP background.

We usually stay in something akin to a resort that is not stupidly expensive because it is not close to the beach. It has a big garden and a swimming pool and it is generally quiet, especially when it’s not school-holiday period.

On the 30th we went to have dinner near Playa de San Juan, the town’s beach, and we were treated to a pretty sunset.

There is not much more to do there, so on the 31st we went to Alicante, to visit the Santísima Trinidad, Holy Trinity vessel, which was anchored at the harbour. The original Santísima Trinidad was a galleon built in Cuba in 1769. It had three decks, but a fourth was added during a later restoration after it was severely damaged in 1797. In 1803 it was put in action again with 140 cannon guns. On the 21st of October 1805, the ship took place in the Battle of Trafalgar against the English, and it was eventually made prisoner and sunk with all the wounded and defeated soldiers on board. The galleon moored in Alicante is a replica, which dubs as café and restaurant, of the three-dock Holy Trinity.

The ship also offers some nice views of the city of Alicante and the Castillo de Santa Bárbara (Santa Bárbara’s castle).

We walked around the Paseo Marítimo, Seaside Walk.

On the 1st we took a walk around San Juan (and I floated like a seal in the swimming pool).

Not an exciting trip but mostly a laid-back, relaxing weekend.

18th July 2012: Weeping Wallet {Japan, summer 2012}

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The 18th was my last day and I was lucky I was able to spending it completely with D****e. I tagged along for her doing some immigration bureaucracy or another, which showed me that red tape sucks the same no matter the country. After she was done, we went to eat an okonomiyaki lunch with pretty waiter to make things nicer.

After that, we went to burn down our wallets, also know as shopping the idol shops in Harajuku [原宿]. This included Johnny’s Entertainment shop, which turned out to be a bit on the disappointing side. I kinda expected something more… grand. Thankfully other shops had enough to make up for it, especially considering my Nakano Broadway spree and the previous day Book Off day.

Leaving Harajuku with lots of Idol stuff and *some* money left. Wohoo:

The day ended with yet another visit to Shinjuku [新宿].

As a final activity we visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Tōkyō Tochō [東京都庁] for viewing Tokyo Tower lit up.

Shinjuku Skyscraper District. I discovered how to activate my camera’s slow shutter mode XD

And then it was over, and the following day I would be heading back home. But fear not because Jbinnacle is not done! There’ll be more. Monotheme posts! Reviews! Fangirling galore! To-do-the-next-time lists! Stay tuned!!

16th July 2012: Umi no Hi! {Japan, summer 2012}

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Monday 16th was the third Monday of June, and thus Umi no Hi [海の日], The Day of the Ocean, and it started great – the sky was super clear. That means we were able to see Mount Fuji, Fuji-san [富士山]! I had not seen him since I was here, not even on my way to Osaka because it was cloudy. It is difficult to see Fuji in Summer, so I was really happy to catch him.

The summit of Mount Fuji peering up through the clouds at the end of a downhill street under construction

The morning, however, was to be spent in Yokohama [横浜]. The first stop was Chinatown, where I got to meet an old ‘friend’ of mine, whom I had been craving to see for a long time, in one of the temples. But that is its own story. (Basically: I got to see a dragon sculpture I loved).

The entrance to Chinatown - an ellaborate gate with Chinese characters, decorated in bright colours - red, blue, gold, green...

In Chinatown we visited Kwan Tai Temple [関帝廟]

An ellaborate temple with guarding dragons on top, over a flight of stairs. The colours are very bright, but the stairs are white.

And Kanteibyō / Kuan Ti Miao Temple [関帝廟 / 中華会館].

An ellaborate temple entrance, with lots of peaks and lanterns behind it

We had lunch in one of the many Chinese restaurants in the area.

Chinese food - rice, dumplings, soup, pickles

Afterwards we moved to the Port of Yokohama to see waves!! the famous skyline and the Yokohama Bay Bridge, along with lots of pretty ships which were open to visit in celebration of Umi no Hi.

Stairs that disappear into the ocean

Yokohama skyline

By 5pm, however, we were back in Tokyo because we had tickets to the theatre, more particularly GACKT’s Butai “MOON SAGA ~Yoshitsune Hiden~” at the Akasaka ACT Theater.

Being guionised by CLAMP, I expected a high body count [Spoilers from here] but I was surprised. The play is prepared as part of the whole Moon Saga project, so it does not focus in GACKT, who has surprisingly little stage time playing Yoshitsune. The play has all the elements of a CLAMP story – tragic love, honour debt, child with preternatural power, a few deaths, a character who randomly changes sides but in his heart he still belongs to the original side, main character forced to kill a friend, lots of angst… The butai tells the story of a group of fighters as they embark themselves in a war against the evil mononoke who are destroying Japan. Yoshitsune’s character himself is a half-oni or has an oni inside him, something along.

As I said, GACKT did not have much screen time, and to be completely honest, his spotlight was completely stolen by Saotome Taichi, a barely legal actor who plays Kage (Shadow), one of the good mononoke and who has a beautiful CLAMPian on-stage death.

Yoshinaga, one of the original companions, loses the love of his life, changes sides and tries to kill Yoshitsune, awakening the demon in him. GACKT flies through the stage during the fight and in the end Demon-Yoshitsune kills his old friend. The curtains fall soon after GACKT desperately cries over Yoshinaga’s body. Very sad. Very CLAMP.

The actors come back onstage, they are ovationed. The curtains fall again, the lights remain off. The curtains are drawn, and we are back to the beginning, the companions are alive and well, has it all been a dream? A foreshadow? Is this the companions’ destiny? But no, they are not companions… they are family…

Moon Saga board, showing singer and actor Gackt staring upwards, his eyes are red

[End Spoilers] It seems that when GACKT talks of the Moon Saga project, it means that you need to know all the pieces of the puzzle to understand the story. Each of the pieces seems to be part of a great jigsaw that will come together to form something absolutely amazing.

Well played, GACKT, well played. Now shut up and take my money, because this is going to be EPIC.

After the play, we had some curry at CocoCurry House.

A pork cutlet, breaded, with curry sauce and rice around it

13th July 2012: Modern & Hip vs. Spriritual & Traditional {Japan, summer 2012}

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There was nothing to fear about Friday the 13th, considering that Kinkakuji had predicted me an excellent fortune (yay!), and it started with a niiiice breakfast – Swallowtails‘ cheesecake.

The first stop of the day was skipped due to a train mishap: I missed the stop and did not realise until I had transferred to another line, so backtracking would be expensive. I was not deterred and moved on to my second destination: Ginza [銀座]. Ginza would be the expensive shopping district, and to be honest it did not give me too much of a good vibe.

Not too happy with the place, I decided that since I could ride the Yamanote line for free (Japan Railway Pass = ♥) I would do a couple of other exteriors. The first one was Tokyo Station [東京駅] which was being renovated, so most of it was covered in white fabric.

Afterwards I headed off to Akihabara Electric Town [秋葉原], the place of Tokyo that seems to have more gaijin per square metre. Akiba lives up to its reputation of flashy, hentai, and maido-café infested. Sadly, the Mandarake was doing some kind of renovation and the usual entrances were closed, so I could not find the way into the… interesting section.

On top of the usual Akihabara scenario, I also found some remains of old Tokyo, among them this old stone bridge, Mansei Bashi [万世橋]

The evening’s destination involved a transfer in Ginza again, so I backtracked towards it. Instead of going into the shopping district, though, I headed off to Hibiya Koen [日比谷公園], which reportedly was were the first shogun houses were, around the Imperial Palace.

After some rest and chocolate cookies, I set off towards quite literally the other corner of the castle, to Kudanshita [九段下]. We have heard about the Chidorigafuchi Toro-nagashi, a matsuri (festival) that involves a number of boats releasing lit lanterns on the water in the Palace Moat at Chidorigafuchi Koen [千鳥ヶ淵公園]. Sounds a pretty thing to see, right? Right. Thing is that Kinkakuji fortune kicked in, so when we arrived there had been a cancellation on one of the boats and… we became part of the festival.

Chidorigafuchi Park is close to Yasukuni Jinja [靖國神社], where yet another festival, the Mitama Matsuri, was being held. We had matsuri food (yakitori), admired the lanterns and heard a bunch of young men doing taiko (traditional drumming). It was beyond amazing an evening.

12th July 2012: Ikebukuro {Japan, summer 2012}

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I have decided to give my blistered feet a bit of a rest and take it easy for a couple of days. Thus, I’m indulging in my newly-found love of canned coffee and karepan.

A breaded bun, open. The inside is white, with a golden filling in the middle

Yesterday, Thursday 12th I spent most of the morning updating the blog and refusing to move from the chair. Then I headed off towards Ikebukuro [池袋], where my first stop was the Ikebukuro West Gate Park [池袋ウエストゲートパーク]. Ikebukuro West Gate Park or IWGP, is a series of urban mystery novels by Ira Ishida. It was adapted into a very successful TV series directed by Tsutsumi Yukihiko and starring Nagase Tomoya. And Chibi Yamapi. [spoiler] And then Yamapi dies. Really sad. [/spoiler] Loved it.

An urban park with a decorative fountain in the middle. There are a couple of trees, but it's mostly surrounded by buildings

I found the Ikebukuro Station Owl. Somehow. After missing it a couple of times.

Sculpture of a big barn owl with a red vest. There are three smaller owls on the left, one of them is carrying a heart

And while there is not an Aquarium at the top of the Shibuya 109, there is one at the top of the Sunshine 60 – the Sushine Aquarium. Literally at the top. They have also some non-aquatic animals like an armadillo, a tapir and a lovely couple of desert foxes or feneqs.

A glass wall that opens up to a tropical aquarium

Small jellyfish swimming in a round aquarium

A cuttlefish, an anemmone and some coral

An octopus huddled in a knot so most that is shown are the suckers against the glass

A shot from the open roof of the aquarium building. Some pathways for the animal residents have been built, they are made of glass. A sea lion is swimming through one

A feneq fox curled up sleeping

A Humboldt penguin colony

After a quick browsing through Mandarake and K-books, we had a reservation for dinner at Swallowtails, which is a butler cafe. I was a bit on the apprehensive side, because my level of Japanese is enough to guesstimate some normal conversation but… yeah, not Keigo or polite Japanese in a formal environment. It turned out really, really nice, too. A cool experience sponsored by my insiders in Japan.

Themed cafés are common in Japan. They are normal restaurants which sell passable food and great experiences, or at least an experience. There are cafés for all tastes and personalities – some are related to animals, others to fantasies. Swallowtails has a number of young men “butlers” who treat you as a royalty and take care of you to almost ridiculous extents. I absolutely loved it, because being the doormat I normally am, it feels nice to be… spoilt a little.

A screenshot of a Japanese webpage. It shows a fancy entrance to a tea house, and reads Swallowtail

Afterwards we headed off for a quick sneak peak of Tokyo by night from the observatory in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Tōkyō Tochō [東京都庁] before coming back home and crashing for the night. Today will hopefully be another slow day…

A view of Tokyo at night, from above the roof tops. The buildings are dark, bit there are thousands of lights and lit windows.

9th July 2012: Osaka, day 1 {Japan, summer 2012}

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Monday 9th had me doing something I never thought I would do – riding a Tokyo train during rush hour, and survived too!

My first destination was Shinagawa station to catch the Hikari Shinkansen bound to Osaka [大阪]. With a speed of almost 300 km/h, the Hikari Shinkansen covered the 454 km between Tokyo and Osaka in abuout three hours, with some stops in between, Nagoya being one of them.

A train station platform with the train arriving in the background. The train locomotive is white and looks like a duck bill

Upon arriving I headed towards the city’s Castle, Osaka-jō [大阪城]. There are no words to describe Osaka-jō, and no picture would make it justice. Have some that try anyway:

Osaka Castle. It stands on a rock base, and it has four floors. The roofs are green/grey and the main walls are white with golden decoration

Osaka castle from the side, showing the accessible lift for wheelchair users

View from the top of Osaka Castle. In the foreground there's the roof decoration, a gold fish-monster. In the background, Osaka highrises. In between the park and the moat

Next to the castle is the Hōkoku Jinja [豊國神社], which I visited too.

A severe grey torii in front of a white and green shrine building

Then I walked back to the castle to undo all the way towards the station – as some monuments close at 3pm I wanted to make sure to go in the tower museum. Now I had the chance to take pictures and explore. By chance I noticed some stairs by the edge of the park surrounding the tower so I climbed up to discover a mini temple to one side of the castle. The small statues symbolize dead or stillborn babies, and I find them incredibly creepy.

Inside a shrine grounds - a little fountain, a stone torii, and a number of small human-like statues wearing red bibs

I explored the area and went back to the main path to find the station and head off to Namba, where my hotel was. Now, Osaka has two main entertainment districts: Namba and Shin Sekai. Namba [難波], where I went, has the Glico man (which somehow I missed, mistaking it for this little shop) and the giant blowfish and crabs.

Giant snow crab adverstisement for a restaurant

Giant dragon advertisement for a ramen restaurant

A billboard of a man reaching the end line of an athletic course, raising his arms in victory. His shirt reads グルコ

In Namba I bought myself some takoyaki – octopus dumplins – for dinner from one of the street stands. This was one of my first interactions completely in Japanese, and I felt stupidly proud of it. And of course, the takoyaki were delicous, albeit scorching hot.

A box of six round dumplins covered with brown sauce

8th July 2012: How high can you fly? {Japan, summer 2012}

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After a very sophisticated brunch in a pizzeria in Roppongi [六本木], on Sunday the 8th we headed off to the calligraphy museum, which did not allow pictures, so there is none. Sorry, I’m civilised XD

After that we headed towards Ikebukuro [池袋] to see the Sunshine 60 and spend money in a Book Off.

A very high skyscraper

Later on we headed off to Shinjuku, particularly to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (TMGB), Tōkyō Tochō [東京都庁] in Shinjuku [新宿]:

Two twin skyscraper towers joined by a middle building from about two thirds down. There are thousands of windows

The TMGB has a free observatory on floor 45 (202 meters high), actually two, but only one was open . We aimed to see sunset but… it was cloudy. Still some impressive sights though, particularly of the skyscrapers around it.

Tokyo cityscape. There are thousands of buildings.

Tokyo cityscape. On the foreground there is a triple tower

Sunset and thousands of tiny buildings to the horizon

Close up of the Shinjuku highrises, a group of ten pr skyscrapers

Tokyo cityscape

5th July 2012: Gods of Old {Japan, summer 2012}

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Yesterday morning started with a much dreaded headache so I decided to try and take it easy, get some morning rest and fill the blog up. Later on I headed off to Asakusa – after a small adventure charging the Suica train card – and had a typical me moment getting lost around the building I had to walk around. Yep, turned the wrong way around said building.

Asakusa [浅草] hosts Sensō-ji [金龍山浅草寺], a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon and it is particularly famous for its giant lanterns (chōchin, [提灯]). Some drama actor I have a tiiiiiny bit of a soft spot has been… well… filming around here a couple of times. And I did not try to reproduce any camera angles *coughs*. Behold the main entrance, the main building and a close-up of the chōchin.

The entrance to a Buddhist temple. There is a huge (taller than a person) red paper lamp hanging with the kanji 雷門 on it, two demon statues stand on its sides

Another entrance gate, with another huge red lantern. The building is decorated with red, white and green

A close-up of the lantern, with 小舟町 written on it

I bought a Temple charm from one of the maiko, a mini lantern and a daruma. The sellers were very nice once they had no more option but to acknowledge my present and we got by in Japanese with calculator showing of totals. In one of the stands I was given an origami crane, which was really cute. I had been recommended a tayaki (sweet) stand but unluckily that they they had cleaning day and they were not serving.

“Close” (in Tokyo terms) to Asakusa is the Tokyo Skytree [東京スカイツリー], which has taken over television broadcasting functions from Tokyo Tower and it is about twice as high. Since I was “in the area” I decided to drop by, although I did not feel like climbing it. Although it has been recently opened, going up is super expensive and… is not Tokyo Tower XD Excuse the funny picture format.

Tokyo Skytree - a tower seemingly made out of grey scaffolding

Getting there I crossed in front of the Asahi Beer Group Building Complex, so have a picture too:

The Asahi building, with horns like a bull

And a system of floodgates, just because I’m biased:

A canal with a flooding gate system

I got something to eat from a Family Mart under the Skytree, and that included dorayaki, because I was starting to feel brave about interactions!

A pancake-like sweet, about the half the size of my hand

Then, I headed to Shibuya [渋谷] because I was getting tired and there was a nice, long, metro ride in the Ginza line. Guess what was the first thing I looked for? The Shibuya 109 building. Unfortunately, if there is an aquarium up there, it is restricted area. Sales day, too. Was crazy, so root me with the Angels for this one XD (X Clamp reference, for those who are hanya’ing right now).

Shibuya 109 building. It is a regular mall with a round tower full of advertisements

Since I had the time I stalked the infamous Shibuya Crossing, which serves about 3,000 people per green pedestrian crossing:

Shibuya crossing, empty of people and cars

Shibuya crossing as people flock into it

Then I did what one does in Shibuya… roam around and spend money OTZ. Though I was banned from Mandarake yet, there were many interesting stores, among them the equivalent to a FNAC / Virgin Media or similar with a HUGE Fukuyama Masaharu DVD promo poster; for the good of my wallet I forbade myself to walk into it. The funny anecdote of the day came when I was listening to KAT-TUN’s Peak and suddenly I heard Kame speaking. I was surprised because I do not have Peak live on my mp3. Then I realised that it had been Shibuya’s giant screen with their new car CM. D****e helped me find a few bargains in Book Off after we met.

A shopping street in Shibuya. One of the billboards on the right reads Book Off

And speaking of meeting, I kind-of was thrown into a nomikai [飲み会] with her volunteering partners that she met in Tohoku. A nomikai is a… typical Japanese drinking party with real Japanese people and at first I was a bit 0_0 about the whole thing. After all my Japanese is… more basic than basic. Surprisingly it turned out very enjoyable with me… making up Japanese as I went along and D****e helping me out most of the time. My random vocab was very surprising at some point for one of the girls because… yeah, I can’t ask for my food to be heated but I know how to say “typical Japanese paper screen”. The downside was coming home past midnight. The upside, was lots of fun.

And guys, romantic dorama weird plots happen in real life. There was a married couple there to prove it.

4th July 2012: Multitasking Day {Japan, summer 2012}

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4th of July is the USA’s Independence Day, and Gackt’s brithday and Akanishi Jin’s birthday and Massu’s birthday, so I renamed it multitasking day.

The day started with getting on the public transport and into the Yamanote Line towards Ueno Kōen [上野公園], Ueno Park, obviously in the Ueno [上野] area. In case anyone has missed this, I am a big CLAMP fan, and the Tokyo Babylon / X arch has a very important plot device in Ueno Park – it is the place where the Sakurazukamori can be found.

The Sakurazukamori is a cursed sakura (cherry) tree which grows on the human blood the Sakurazuka mystic assassin clan feeds them, the blood of their victims. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate the Sakurazukamori, but I was creepily amused to notice how many crows there were in the area. However with that many people around, I think Seishirou would have trouble hiding his kills in there XD I was wandering around for about an hour and a half.

A path in the middle of a park. Bright green trees close over it

Thus started my torii obsesion, looking at the entrance of Hanazono Inari Jinja [花園稲荷神社]. Torii [鳥居] are symbolic gates that separate holy grounds in Shinto – they are made out of stone or wood, in this case they tend to be painted bright orange or vermillion. They usually have two columns and two horizontal boards on top, the upper one is a bit curved upwards, and there is a plaque showing the name of the shrine. They sometimes have some writing on the back of the columns.

The entrance of a shrine, with a row of torii heading down some stairs

There are a lot of Museums in Ueno Park, and I chose the Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [東京国立博物館], Tokyo National Museum, for a visit when the heat became too much. Yesterday it was supposed to thunderstorm, so I decided to go walk the park first and go to the Museum if / when it rained. In the end I went into the Museum when it did not rain XD. It was a tadbit too hot to wander around…

The Tokyo National Museum of Art is focused on Japanese culture and art (there’s a Western Museum of Art not that far away, also in Ueno) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art in the next corner.

The entrance of the National Museum of Art, a light grey building with a brick roof

I am not going to bluff and tell you how I appreciated the sliding doors art of the china art. I did, but let me be honest. The katana collections are the ones that made me flail:

A katana

After I was done with the Museum I needed to hunt down some food. I had two options, stay in Ueno and give a try to the Metropolitan or go somewhere else. In the end I decided to head off to the station, get food there and get into the Yamanote line [山手線] again until Hamamatsuchō [浜松町] where I sat on a park to eat my onigiri and get some rest. After that, I visited the San’en-zan Zōjō-ji [三縁山増上寺] Chief Temple of Jodo-Buddhist, which kind of was in my way.

A vermillion Buddhist temple which you need to access going up the stairs. A few people come and go

A wooden Buddhist temple building

Very, very pretty. But the actual reason I was in the area was the metallic structure you can guess to the right in the first picture. This is the area where Tokyo Tower [東京タワー]. Insert a huge fangirl squeal here. Aloud. just after coming out the station, when the tower was barely visible against the sky. Of course, however, I could not stay away XD.

As I mentioned before, there was supposed to be bad weather, so originally I did not have plans to climb it up yesterday but… I did anyway because there was good weather. I had decided to only go up to the main observatory (150 m high), but in the end I found myself asking for the special observatory combo ticket, which lets you go to the special observatory 250 m high (total height of tower is 333 m).

A view of Tokyo Tower from the ground. It is not a good picture, a bit burnt, but it shows the whole tower from afar

Tokyo Tower - a picture from the base upwards

Lots of CLAMP manga have important stuff happening in Tokyo Tower: in Tokyo Babylon, Subaru banishes a restless spirit, in X Kamui and Fuuma fight there as it is one of the Tokyo kekkai, in Clamp Gakuen Noboru wants to celebrate his birthday party there and in Magic Knight Rayearth, the three main characters meet there. Though let me tell you, I don’t know how three classrooms fit in here so they see each other when Emmeraude calls upon them:

A view of the observatory of Tokyo Tower

Yes, I took pictures inside the observatory, I took pictures from the view too, of course. Note Tokyo Bay and Rainbow Bridge, another of the kekkai.

Tokyo buildings from above, with a huge park in the foreground

Tokyo highrises

Tokyo Bay inlet and buildings around it

I even looked down

A glass floor shows the view of the streets below and Tokyo Tower structure underneath.

The day ended with a quick visit to Ebisu [ヱビス] Place (where MatsuJun gets stood up in Hana Yori Dango), a quick once-over Shibuya, katsukare for dinner and then falling kinda dead.

A square. A covered gallery is int he background

I made friends with a Shiba Inu who wanted petting and totally pwned jet lag. I also was misled into trying a horribly ocha (tea) drink that Tackey promoted on TV, which was… horrid. Lesson learnt. We don’t trust Tackey on drinks…

A bottle of tea soda