Tokyo Sights

Here are some photos from our recent trip to Tokyo. Arranged by area we visited. Japan was a wonderful trip. I loved the city, the food, the people and the weather. Enjoy!

Ginza

Ginza is known for its beautiful upscale shopping and dining district. It lived up to its reputation with plenty of restaurants and shops to keep us busy.

A little closer to the lights.

I think the signs coincide with what you will find on each level of the building. The sign at the bottom is on the first floor and the sign at the top is on the top floor, maybe, sort of. 

Interesting tent bbq restaurant. We didn't eat here but it was right across the street from a ton of indoor restaurants. Strange for an upscale area but maybe its the best bbq around?

I just noticed the small sign that says they have an English menu. Missed it at the time. 

Love the lit lanterns at the entryway. Sometimes an English menu didn't help that much. I still wasn't exactly sure what we would be getting but it all worked out. The food was good at every place we went to. I can't think of one bad meal in Tokyo.

A view of the street below from our hotel. Rainy day in Tokyo.

Shibuya

The Shibuya area is famous for having one of the busiest intersections in Japan. It is also where most of the young people hang out. We could tell immediately, the place is full of adult repellent! Its loud and crowded and way too cool for this old lady. Nice to photograph though :)

Night lights in Shibuya.

 

I didn't get much shopping done here, too crowded!

Shinjuku

Shopping and dining street in Shinjuku, near our first hotel. It wasn't as crowded as I expected it to be. Maybe I was visiting at off peak hours.

Cold enough for coat, scarf and gloves. I loved it! A welcome change from our usual hot and humid Singapore weather.

Caught a bit of a reflection in the building on the left. 

If we are lucky enough to visit again I would definitely prefer to stay in the Shinjuku area. Seemed to have a nice vibe. Maybe I would look for a city walking tour or a photography day tour.

 

I'd love to know what this sign is about. It must be regarding holding on to your small children in a crowded area but lok closely at the figures at the top. The adult is oddly shaped and the child has the cutest little bow or ears on her hat. Very artsy :) 

Another cool sign with evil eyes at the top. It's located at a few places around the city where bicycles are parked, must be saying bike left is illegal! Maybe this area is monitored by CCTV explaining the eyes?

Well that is part of our trip. I'll post more next week. I hope everyone is enjoying clean air where you are. We are definitely not. Looks like a day spent indoors for me. 

Happy Friday!!!

Sailing in Marina Bay

The Extreme Sailing Series was at Marina Bay over the weekend. 

It was a good weekend for it, super windy and not super humid for a change.

  

1st Place went to Red Bull, on the left. 

You can see the Merlion in the background.

A few spectators. 

Happy Friday!!!

Out of the Running :(

I was saving this photo for the day that I finished the Tokyo Marathon. Unfortunately that day is not going to come this year as planned. I have a torn calf muscle and will not be running for a few weeks, taking me out of the race. These are still my all time favorite shoes. I guess they will wait around for me to heal.

 

This project was hard to do. First I take a photo of the shoes in a product tent just like these two, one with a black background and one with white. The tent is just to give a fairly consistent background and make the shoes stand out as the only subject. 

  

Remove the background so all you have are a pair of shoes or a flame, whatever you are using, nothing else. This is the most time consuming part and this is what you are left with. I think I also need to crop the photos when I finish removing the background. Don't need all that extra blank space.

  

Then choose a photo to place your shoes into. I added my shoes into the fireworks photo to make it look like the fireworks were shooting out of my shoes, at least that is what the idea was, not so sure it really worked :) but close enough, right? With the fire I switched it up and cut out the fire, removing the rest of the photo and add the fire onto the shoe photo with black background. I just looked on YouTube for instructions on how to do this using Pixlr, a free online photo editing website. Since I haven't been walking around so much it was good to have something to work on like this.

The fire was from an old photo taken during a Chinese New Year celebration near a large temple in Bugis. 

This was harder and I am not so happy with it. I wanted the cow to look like she was wearing my shoes and...it isn't even close. Sort of a neat project to play around with.

Happy Friday!!!