Daily Photos

Saving space.

The Edo Tokyo Museum (that's a smudge on my lens, not a UFO).

The Edo-Tokyo Museum is full of detailed models like this about the history of the city of Tokyo.

The view from the restaurant in the top of the museum.

Stumbled upon a park near the museum.

The Sumo arena (Ryogoku Kokugikan).

The wrestlers come out in a parade and then do this awesome dance (here is something else's video of it).

Preparations for the bouts.

Here are a series of videos - click to watch. They progress from lower ranked to higher ranked wrestlers(is that what they are called?) in these 3 videos.

In the last bout, the Yokozuna was upset by the challenger, which leads to the crowd throwing their seat cushions into the ring (a traditional response reserved for upsets in the last round, because otherwise you don't have a seat cushion). Sorry the video quality is not great. Email me if it's not visible and I'll post it on youtube or something better.

Daily Photos

Shibuya is one of the main shopping/entertainment areas and a major transportation hub. There will be a lot more photos of this area.

There are a lot of gardens mixed into the city, at least outside of the main downtown area.

Megatron taking a nap?

Tamachi.

Daily Photos

Buildings are wrapped while they are being worked on (tort shield)

Between the hours of 11-4, there is always a line outside this place. It's a ramen restaurant where people sit down inside at a small counter (photos to come). It may be equivalent to a Pat's or Geno's of Japan, except for the hours.

It seems to be quite common that old buildings get sandwiched between modern high rises.

Architects, take note of this design feature (that's an old fashioned doorway inside a modern one, complete with grass).

 Entrance way to Keio University. I will get the other entrance another day (it looks less european).

Canal at night.

 I will have to explore what this guy is selling, but in any case that's a wood stove of some kind on the back of his truck. (ISO 3200, sorry)

Outside of the downtown at night.

I think I'll do a whole series on vending machines. The lower level there, with red in the background are hot drinks. The can comes out hot.

Daily Photos

Things get quiet at night outside of the downtown

A 100 yen  shop (read: dollar store)

It is a dreary day

The bike parking lot at a train station

Photos of the Day (yesterday)

Mochitsuki (making of Japanese rice cakes in a festival that happens twice per year). First the rice is steamed:

Then, massaging the rice gently

Then the sychronized mashing

Then an individual mashing that looks more like kneading because the rice is folded into itself