Camping in Tokyo

No I wasn't being a bum in a park, there is an actual campsite in Tokyo on the bay. I had a lot of time to kill so I want to Kasai Rinkai Park, which is next door to the Tokyo Disney Land. I didn't have any desire to see Disney Land. Surprisingly it looked like they had all the same rides as the one in California. I was planning on seeing the aquarium in the park, but it was closed on the one day I am there. It's a nice park and I my comeback for night pictures of the gaint ferris wheel.

In the afternoon I get out of the park and takw the train one stop over. The park and camp ground is on a huge man made land mass. The area was all industrial, with a golf course, and shipping trucks driving all over. I had and hour walk to gett all the way down to the park and campsite at the end. As a walk there is a single huge wind turbine in the distance that I know is at the park. I was so hungry and tired, the wind turbine slowly got bigger and bigger. I finally made it to the park and ate dinner under the giant turbine silently turning in the wind.

The campsite is at the very over looking the ocean. Camping is a loose term here, as you can see in the pictures it is next to a highway bridge. People come here to pretend to camp. I saw a guy spend a lot of time putting up a tent, take it down, then and leave. Maybe he was practicing. Planes flews over constantly, making their decent into the airport. A construction crew worked on the other side of the trees behind me until nightfall and I wake up to their noisy jackhammer in the morning. This feels more like a place for people to feel homeless for a night than an actual camp ground.

Japan sure does have a lot of ferris wheels. This one was the biggest so far.

You can see the wind turbine in the distance, my destination later on.

My final and most remote campsite.

Tokyo on the other side of the bay.

Long exposure showing the planes landing flight path.

Green Tea Ice Cream

Today I am back were I started almost two months ago. I booked a capsule hotel for cheap, and the area it was in is the same as when I first arrived in Tokyo. On that first day I got off the bus at Tokyo station and walked north a long way looking for a hostel. At that time I had no idea were I was going to stay for the night, and had no idea what I was doing or what to look for. It feels so long ago, but today I walked familiar streets and everything is natural.

Green tea is big in Japan so they have a lot of other things like candy or bread in that flavor. I'm not really big on tea, so normally I wouldn't pick up a tea flavored ice cream. The first time I had it I thought I was getting mint chocolate chip. After the first bite I was confused as to what the hell in was eating. It's pretty good, especially with chocolate. Pictured below is this ice cream sandwich thing I get every time. This is the first time I have seen it in green tea. The standard one has the basic ice cream cone but in two waffle shapes enclosing vanilla ice cream with a layer of chocolate. Because the ice cream is inside you don't have to worry about melting all over. Then there is an all chocolate version only sold at Mini Stop convenience stores that is amazing. I always try and hunt that one down, but it is hard to find. These things need to come to the US, seriously, the are good.

Lucky Camera

I lost my beloved camera the other day in Nagoya. That sucked, but I'm in Shinjuku Tokyo now, a huge shopping area. I read it is the best place to shop for electronic's in Japan and even better for a camera. To make matters more complicated though, I need to find the exact model that is now completly old tech wise. Back home I have a deep water encloser for under water pictures that only fits that camera, and that thing ain't cheap.

I was disappointed with Shinjuku honestly. Besides clothing stores, there are only big name department stores all selling the same new models as any other place in Japan. I guess a good place to buy the latest stuff. I needed a camera only store with a guy sitting on old stock for any hope to find my camera. I walk all over, then search Google maps. Only one place comes up that looks promising. Lucky Camera, and the website says he buys and sells old film cameras. The only place so far I might have a chance of finding what I want. On the way there I pass the first camera specific store have seen. With Nikon logos all over it looks like a Nikon store. Inside there it is though, the old Olympus E-PL1 in cherry red 17000 yen ($166 abouts). I'm ready to buy it, but this wasn't Lucky Camera. I should go see what he has before I buy, maybe they have one cheaper than here. So I end up at Lucky camera that is down the block, and would you know it, right in the window for 16800 yen there it is a E-PL1 S. Wait. Why is there an S? It looks exactly the same as my lost one, but there is that S, mine didn't have an S. I've never heard of the model. I look online and find out it is a slightly upgraded version, with a better lense, battery, iso stuff, and it only came out in Japan. So yeah I got it. Lucky Camera lived up to its name for me.

While looking around for dinner I find out It was apparently a festival day. I've always wanted to go to a Japanese festival thing. They are usually always the same no matter were you are in Japan. People gather at the shrine and there are lots of booths selling food and carnival type games for kids. A Japanese version of a carnival in a way. 

I'll never let you go I promise!
Even though it was released only in Japan, I managed to set it up in English.
That's the mini lense I had to re-buy next to it.

Oh yeah I was at the planetarium to kill time in Nagoya
I'm not really sure I've been to one before.
This was one of the largest in the world apparently.

A man juggles a tea cup with an umbrella.

Goldfish catching game. A must have at any Japanese festival.
You try to catch the fish with a circle of wire covered tight with paper.
The paper gets wet and easily breaks under the fishes weight so the game takes skill.

I don't know what it is, but it was good.

Lost Camera Again

I lost my camera again, but this time there is no hope in getting it back. I put it down to on a bench in a park to eat lunch and forgot to pick it up. My only luck was when I returned, who ever went through the camera bag dropped the thumb drive that was inside that had all the pictures backed up. There's that I guess. I will post more from shitty a camera phone, I don't know. I could buy another camera in Tokyo, but I really don't have the money to spend on it. I really liked that camera. Tomorrow my bus doesn't leave until midnight, so I'll have figure out how to kill 15 hours. Here are some of the last pictures I transferred over.

Update: I feel better now than when I first posted. I'm going to try and find the same camera (Olympus Pen E-PL1) in Tokyo. If not I'll just have to take pictures with my Nexus 7, and buy one off eBay when I get back into the US.

Toyota Automobile Museum

I'm in the city of Nagoya. With a whole big city to explore there is only one place I really want to see, The Toyota Automobile Museum. I guess this solidifies me as a car guy. You would think that it would be a museum consisting entirely of Toyota cars, and I would have still been satisfied if that was the case, but there is a whole timeline of cars from many companies here. There are some very rare, unique, expensive, and some common cars on display. For some reason they had a De Lorean (Back to the Future car) as the first thing you see at the ticket counter. That hunk of junk belongs in a dumpster not a museum. Anyway. They go from 1900 all the way to modern day, and all the cars are in running condition.

The real reason for me to go to this museum though? The Toyota 2000GT. A rare car indeed, only something like 337 were ever produced, and sell for over a million dollars today. In person it is simply a work of art. Next to the 2000GT was an empty space. I go to read what is supposed to be there. The Lexus LFA. God dammit! Probably my only chance to see one of the coolest modern supercars, and I missed it. Some jerk is probably taking a joyride in it.

Toyota Model AA 1936. The first Toyota.

2000GT

The most perfect Land Cruiser I have ever seen.

Japanese 1955 Flying Feather. Reminded me of my dune buggy.

Inujima Island

I don't even remember how I learned about this place. It used to be a refinery until it closed down almost a hundred years ago. Now the island has only forty residents, all over seventy years old. So not much was going on, until they decided to put a modern art museum and incorporate some art in the town. I wondered if the whole town will end up an art project as all the residents will be gone not far from now.

Getting to then island was easy, but took forever. I take the train and get off at Saidaiji staition knowing there is a bus that goes to Hoden Port. Only the bus comes four times a day and I just missed the first one a 10:10. The next one comes at 12:50. That really sucked, but I wait, and the bus finally comes. The bus took the weirdest route I have ever been on. It didn't take the main road. Oh no, it took the one and a half sized, side roads. Then they turn into one lane, but people are using it both ways. There are buildings on the sides and he is snaking around tight turns almost hitting things. The bus stop locations made no sense. It seemed to be stopping at random peoples houses. One was at a telephone pole surrounded by nothing but empty fields all around. Yet a man was waiting to be picked up.

On the island I didn't care about seeing the museum, only the art in the town. I get to the first one (the foam looking stuff in a glass house) and the guy asks for a ticket. Yes that is right, they want me to buy a ticket to view public art. As an artist, this pisses me off completly. So I just can't go in. I can already see it all from the outside! I can take a picture outside, but if I take one step in I can't take a picture. What a joke, now I am completely uninterested in seeing the actual museum. The others didn't have this bullshit thankfully, so I don't see any point of the ticket. Maybe I wad just lucky. The refinery was all fenced off. I couldn't get by without blatantly being seen jumping the fence. Oh, I thought about it though. I thought about it for sometime.

As a former museum guard I now have a profound hatred of video art.

Flowers growing in the sand.

Another campsite. This one had a beer vending mticket m. It tasted terrible though.

I tried some night photography.