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The first leg of our journey to New York a couple weeks ago included an evening flight to Portland, Oregon (before changing planes to a red eye flight to the Big Apple). Most of the time the sun was so bright (setting in the west and I was on the left side of the plane heading north) that I couldn’t see much. But for the moment when I took today’s pic, the plane’s wing/engine got in the way of my vision and the sun and (ignoring the dirty window) afforded a nice, heavenly view.
Beautiful sky over the Asano River in Kanazawa, Japan
I took this photo in Kanazawa last summer because the sky was so interesting. I didn’t realize until much later that this is a rather famous bridge (Asanogawa Ohashi). Originally built in 1594, the current structure is from 1922. In 2000 this bridge was classified as a tangible cultural property (登録有形文化財) which I’m guessing is something similar to the USA’s National Registry of Historical Places.
On the left side of the bridge is Kanazawa’s famous Geisha Tea House District (東茶屋街).
Aurlandsfjord in Sognefjord, Norway
Norway was a fine trip these past four days. The weather was fantastic. I did the “Norway In A Nutshell” leg from Oslo to Bergen (and back) on the Bergen Line. At Myrdal you can get on a different train and go down to Flam where the Aurlandsfjord, pictured above, begins.
This is my favorite kind of sky–a mixture of bright blue and crazy cloud action. Akihabara in Tokyo was the place.
I wish there were more skies like these in Tokyo during the spring and summer. Usually the sky is completely white due to the humidity, but sometimes we get lucky. I took this pic after we left Gyosen Park and crossed the Arakawa into Sumida Ku.
I have seen this curious building, above, several times (on Shinmejiro Dori, just west of Takadanobaba Station). On this day it finally looked ready for a picture with the blue sky and white fluffy clouds passing by.
This second photo is from the beginning of Walk #2. The Shakujii River was at my back and the Azaleas were in bloom.
I’m sometimes asked what has changed in Japan from when I lived here in the late 1980s. One of the biggest changes is the aesthetics of the apartment housing. I’m not sure exactly when this change came about, but once upon a time nearly all apartments in Japan (danchi or 団地) were made of white concrete. These still exist, as you can see in the above photo, but they are no longer made to look this way. Most, in Tokyo anyway, have been rebuilt with a more modern design (or at least the facade covering the buildings make them look more modern than the white cement which doesn’t age very well).
Not all go for the blue of today’s top photo, but they still look more pleasing than the endless, dirty-white housings of Japan’s past.