Yodobashi Camera

Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara is nine huge floors of wallet damaging goodness.


103" Plasma screen tv. This thing was almost as tall as me, so huge I don't think it would even fit in my Tokyo apartment. Yours for the low, low price of 5,600,000 Yen or about $61,000. I ordered two.

Slopeside Sushi

Slopeside Sushi Bar at the Happo One ski area.

Snow in Tokyo

Skiing Millitary

While I was skiing at the Furano Ski Area the Japanese Military was doing some kind of winter ski training.



They were not very good.

Jumpers?

The top of the Takashimaya Department Store in Shinjuku has an outdoor patio area where you can look out over the city. They really don't want you to climb over the fence.

Krispy Kreme Invades Japan

I was wondering around the Shinjuku Train Station and came across a Krispy Kreme Doughnuts with a huge line of people waiting to get their sugar fix. People were standing outside in the cold and rain and according to the sign it was a 20 minute wait to get inside.

Japan - Prison

The City of Abashiri in Hokkaido is famous for it's prison.

Japan - Breakfast

This is the breakfast at one of the Hotels we stayed at.

Japan - Traditional Hotels

While in Hokkaido for the Nature Photography workshop we stayed in several different hotels as we traveled around. A couple of the hotels were pretty standard western style, but a couple were more traditional Japanese style with tatami mat floors and futons. While at dinner the hotel staff would come into the room and move the small table and lay out a futon to sleep on.

Photographer Feeding Frenzy

This is a shot of all the photographers at the Akan International Crane Center. I was pretty surprised at how many people were there to shoot photos of the cranes

Deer

Eagles

Swans

Eagle

Japan - Cold

I'm on a week long nature photography workshop traveling around the northern island of Japan. So far we've been shooting mostly birds (cranes, eagles, swans) and we've also done some landscape photography. I haven't shot birds before, so it's been fun and pretty challenging. Each day we get up around 4:30 in the morning so that we can be on our bus heading for our morning location before sunrise. It's been pretty cold, but what makes the cold bad is that for the most part there's not a lot of movement involved in taking pictures, so the cold can really sink in. I've been wearing Under Armor top and bottom, a second long spandex on the bottom, sweatpants, snow pants, two pairs of socks, boots with hand warmers in them, hoody, jacket, gloves with finger and a pair of mittens over the gloves.

Japanese Cranes and Eagles

Japan - Skiing in Hakuba

We drove from Tokyo to Hakuba on Friday night. Once we got to Hakuba it was pouring rain and it continued to rain hard all night. But the rain stopped once morning came and we headed to the ski slopes. Unfortunately all of the rain and warm weather melted a ton of snow and turned it into a slushy mess. It was more like spring skiing in Late April or May and winter skiing in the middle of February. You could actually see the snow melting from one run to the next.


It was also crazy crowded for some reason.


Pretty Cool! There was a McDonald's in the chalet at the top of the mountain. Unfortunately it was closed.



All of the melted snow and rain pouring off the mountain.

Tokyo Tower with Mt Fugi

LaQua Amusement Park

I was up near the Tokyo Dome and found a cool little amusement park and shopping area. I only went on the roller-coaster, it has a pretty gnarly first drop and the coaster goes through a hole in a building and through the center of the Farris Wheel.

Tokyo Street

Rockabillies in Yoyogi Park

Mt Fuji Sunset

Parking Skills

Tokyo

Sunkus

How awesome is a chain of convenient stores who's logo has a character with a giant erection.

Shower

I never thought that taking a shower could be so complicated. It's a good thing that my apartment came with a English users manual or I would never have figured it out. The biggest problem to solve was how to actually get hot water. The apartment uses a water heater that heats the water as it's needed. The trick is that you need to turn it on each time that you want hot water, it then turns itself off when it senses the water has been turned off.


The shower is a little room that includes the shower, bathtub, sink, and clothes drier. When you take a shower everything gets wet. The bathtub is a little square thing that definitely doesn't look like it would be good for long soaks.


The shower area has it's own ventilation and heating controls. There's a setting for drying out the shower after using it. One cool thing is that there is a setting for drying your clothes. Hang your wet clothes in the shower area, hit the correct button and warm dry air is circulated through the shower area.