Hong Kong - Typoon Koppu

My flight to Hong Kong landed around 11:00 at night. The final part of the flight and the landing turned out to be a bit of an adventure because Hong Kong was being hit by Typhoon Koppu. So things got pretty bumpy as we got closer to landing. But the plane landed safely and I was able to take a shuttle bus to my hotel near the airport.

The next morning the rain and winds were still pretty strong, but by around noon most of the storm had passed.

You can see the wind really blowing the trees.

Leaks

Hong Kong

I'm heading for Hong Kong for 6 days.

Japan - Osaka Castle

Osaka has a really amazing looking castle. Unfortunately once you go inside the castle you realized that it's actually a modern steel and concrete building made to look like the original Osaka Castle. The inside if the castle is a museum and looks nothing like what the castle actually looked like on the inside, there's even elevators and escalators.

Japan - Himeji Castle

Japan - Monkeys

On one of the mountains surrounding Kyoto is the Iwatayama Monkey Park. It's a pretty interesting area at the top of a small mountain where about 170 Japanese Macaque live. It's about a 20 minute walk up a fairly steep trail to get to the top of the mountain where the monkeys are wild and free to roam around.

Japan - Crime

One of the things that I like about Japan is the incredibly low crime rate. I don't have to worry around get mugged while wandering around late at night taking photos. Or if I was to lose something, I would more then likely get it back.

This photo shows what I'm talking about. I was having lunch at a fast food restaurant. Like many fast food places in Tokyo this one was multi-story. You ordered and picked up your food on the first floor and then went up to the second or third floor to eat. I was setting on the second floor eating my lunch when a group of ladies walked in, went to a table, put their bags down and then went back downstairs to order their food. Not worrying that anyone would steal their stuff.



One extra note, I have two iPods, a Sony music player, and three Japanese cell phones that I'm trying to sell (cheap) if anyone is interested.

Japan - Strange Store Display

I was walking through Ginza and spotted this strange display in one of the store windows. A giant 6 foot tall stuffed dude with a penis.

Japan - Gundam

A couple of months ago I did a post about the giant Gundam being build on Odiba. Here's a few photos of the finished Gundam.

The number of people going to see Gundam is pretty amazing.

Japan - Strange T-Shirts

Since I like interesting and funny t-shirts I'm always reading other peoples t-shirts and one thing I've noticed a few times here in Japan are Japanese people wearing t-shirts that I'm pretty sure they don't know what the t-shirt actually says.

Here's a great example, this is a t-shirt that I saw a lady wearing at the Fuji Rock Festival. She was a pretty normal looking lady, not someone who I would expect to be wearing a t-shirt about fisting. But, then maybe she was a lot wilder then she looked.

Japan - Outdoor Bathroom

While in Osaka earlier this year, I came across this semi-outdoor bathroom near the Osaka Castle. From the front the bathroom building looked normal, but once inside you saw that there was no back wall to the bathroom.

Japan - White President Obama?

At the United States of Odaiba event there was a Obama booth, I think for the town of Obama, Japan. People were posing to have their photos taken with a President Obama cut out, but somehow Obama has turned white in Japan.

Japan - United States of Odaiba

I was wandering around Odaiba last week when I came across some kind of big event. So I decided to check it out. Once I got closer I saw the event was called the "United States of Odaiba" and I thought cool, some kind of United States of America event. But once I looked around a bit, I realized that the event had absolutely nothing to do with America. It was a bit hard to tell what the even was for because other then the "United States of Odaiba" signs absolutely nothing was in English. Which was a little strange because usually there's at least some English signs around.

The one English sign I found. "You knock on a jumping door!"
The Japanese sure know how to have fun.

Japan - Baseball in the Tokyo Dome

On Sunday I went to watch a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. It wasn't the Japanese professional teams playing, but part of a playoff of Japanese company teams. The game I saw was between NTT Docomo and Hitachi. What made things more interesting then a normal baseball game was how each of the companies was trying to show company spirit and having the crowd cheer for their team. The stadium was divided in half with NTT on one side and Hitachi on the other, with a little section of normal fans inbetween. Everyone in the Hatachi side was wearing orange t-shirts and baseball caps and the NTT side was dressed in blue. Each side had cheerleaders, bands, and people going through the crowds encouraging their side to cheer for their team. Overall it was a pretty fun experience.

Inside Tokyo Dome.

The Hitachi side of the stadium, everyone wearing orange.

Japan - Rainbow

Rainbow out my Tokyo apartment's window.

Japan - Snova - Indoor Skiing

One thing that Japan has that's pretty cool is indoor skiing. There's several of these indoor ski places scattered around Japan. They're not very big, so they would probably not be a lot of fun for just skiing, but they're perfect for a little terrain park with jumps and rails to slide. It's a little strange going from the hot and humid summer weather into a big refrigerator.

Snova indoor terrain park.

Me hitting one of the jumps.

Matt tries a 360.

Jeff going for a tail grab.

Me hitting one of the boxes.

Taiwan - Food

Taiwan has lots of really delicious food to eat. Here's a few photos of some of the strange, interesting and sometimes kind of scary foods that I tried while in Taiwan.

And if anyone is interested, no, I did not eat the stinky tofu. I don't care what what people say, anything that smells that bad can not be good for you.

Beef Noodle Soup.

The white stuff is Tofu. The green black thing is a hundred year old egg, which is an egg that has been soaked in evil. Actually, it's egg that has been soaked for weeks or months in a mud like mixture, which sounds almost as bad as being soaked in evil.

Dumplings

Fried Mushrooms.

Shrimp, Bamboo, Noodle Soup, Noodles, and the really unpleasant looking one in front is Pork, which was pretty good.

Frog

Meat Filled Bun.

I have no idea, but I was told that it was a really famous dish.