(shot by Alice)
|
|
Decent closeup of the cherry blossoms in Chichibu. Chichibu is a quiet little area
not far from Tokyo, and it's perfect for a day trip. Numerous onsen, great scenery, and
something like 35 shrines. We went to one, but we chose pretty well. |
|
Random beast guarding the shrine. |
|
|
|
More of the shrine...
|
|
A fox! Shrines are very big on foxes - some of the shrines we saw in other areas had
hundreds of foxes around them, some even clothed. |
|
|
|
This is where we lucked out. We knew that Chichibu was having a festival of some sort, but we
managed to hit the one shrine where the Kyodo demonstrations were happening! The archers
didn't seem terribly accurate, but we were told this is because they normally shot at a range
of 25 metres, while the demonstration only had room for them to shoot about 8m. |
|
More of the kyudo - check out the angle on the bow when it's flexed. They actually hold onto a
very low part of the bow, and lean the whole thing forward. Nothing like longbows or modern
composites. |
|
|
|
This was another cemetery on the way to the cable car that took us to a shrine on a
mountaintop. The view going up was pretty good, but I didn't take pictures, figuring
I'd wait until the top. When I got to the top... |
|
Fog rolled in while we were eating! The restaurant we hit would have had a great view,
but as it was with the fog, we could barely see about ten metres from where we were sitting.
Things did get a bit better, and I got this shot of a torii near the entrance. |
|
|
|
The pathway down to the shrine, complete with mystery-inducing fog. |
|
Another fox at another shrine we found along the way.
This little guy was actually clothed, as you can see. It's sort of a cape/handkerchief thing. (shot by Alice) |
|
|
|
The ride down was interesting - we couldn't see a thing, so we just sort of descended into the mist.
Nice effect. |
|
Later on in Chichibu, we happened across more festival activities in progress. This is a
shot of the kabuki people getting geared up for their performance. |
|
|
|
Unfortunately, while there was plenty of light to see by, the shooting light was dismal,
so the pictures didn't really turn out. Instead, I took this picture of a tree
which was right next to the performance. |
|
This is actually one of the better-lit shots from the kabuki. To be honest,
while it was interesting, I'm not convinced I'm going to be searching for kabuki
performances in the UK. |
|
|
|
Hey, we're in Japan, we have to go to Chinatown, right? This is in Yokahama, which has a huge
Chinatown, including lots of all you can eat places, which was great. |
|
This is the front of a really big shrine in Yokahama's Chinatown. It's interesting
just how different a Chinese shrine is from a Japanese one. The Japanese are the
epitome of minimalism, while the Chinese are rather the opposite. |
|
|
|
Well, I was trying to get a better shot of the top bits of the entrance - the
colours on the dragons were great.
|
|
To be honest, I think the foxes look nicer, but this appears to be the Chinese equivalent. |
|
|
|
Just a partial shot of the front of the
shrine. Chinatown was so packed in that there really wasn't any space to take a good shot of the shrine
as a whole. Needed a fisheye lens, really. |
|
This is part of the metalwork. |
|
|
|
The Blue Gate into Chinatown. There were
four of varying colours. |
| We saw this from a distance as we were heading
down the waterfront in Yokahama. It really dominated the skyline, so we had to get a bit closer.
The lights and lines of coloured light you can see were all actually moving. |
|
|
|
As it turned out, it was some sort of space display being put on (in part) by NASA.
We didn't really see any reason to go inside - the outside of the building was
probably the best bit! |
|
Tuna! This was the Tokyo fish market, for which I'd like to point out I got out of
bed at 4:45 AM, having gone to bed at 1:30 AM. Still, incredible place - it was huge! |
|
|
|
These little buggy things were all over the place - there were hundreds of the things
shifting fish from place to place. The buggy drivers knew one phrase of english, which was "Hey you!"
You'd generally hear this right before you were about to be run over by psychotic fishmongers. They
weren't shy with the bumpers on those things either - they bounced off each other all the time. |
|
Breakfast? In sushi places they do actually keep fish in tanks like this, and
pluck them out as they require more sushi. The mostly dead fish serves as a nice centrepiece
while you're eating.
|
|
|
|
Some squid I had to photograph, simply because I think squid look seriously strange.
|
|
This was a huge pile of what look like tiny octopus. Sort of made me think of Geiger
and Cthulu all at the same time. Yeek.
|
|
|
|
We can now follow the lifecycle of the frozen tuna. Tuna is a very important fish
as it's worth a huge amount of money. Big tuna can fetch prices up to around
a million yen. This sounds ridiculous, but tuna are also huge fish.
|
|
This helps provide some context for the size of these things. The white blocks on
the tuna are dry ice being used to keep the tuna frozen for the initial cutting.
|
|
|
|
This highly precise tuna-cutting device is also sometimes known as "the band saw."
I've never seen a band saw used on food before - I'm sure my woodworking teacher from
school would be appalled. You can see a nice cross-section anyway - the different colours
are very different eating. The darker parts are fattier, and somewhat tastier, though
pretty much all raw tuna tastes great.
|
|
I'm not sure if this is just a low-rent version of a bandsaw or what, but one
of these guys was quite happily waving an adze at this block of tuna.
|
|
|
|
The sections from the two above pictures are then cut into smaller sections, and look
like this when they're defrosted. Those prices are excellent compared to what you end
up paying in a sushi restaurant...
|
|
And there you go! Still needs a bit more cutting for proper sushi, but you get
the idea.
|
|
|
|
A huge tub of eels, how appealing! The fish market was quite a place - I have more pictures to put
up, but I might put them in their own section.
|