Blue Impulse
Earlier this week I visited the air force base closest to Tokyo, in Iruma city up in Saitama prefecture. Once a year the base throws on a big air show and this years sunny but cold weather drew about 220 000 people. It’s free and just 30 mins by train from Tokyo so I was very surprised to not see more than a handful of obviously foreign people there. The main event of the air show is obviously the Japanese Air Acrobatic team, the Blue Impulse and their Kawasaki T-4 Trainers. They performed a stunning air show complete with sky writing of fearsome precision. I did my best to keep up with them but shooting planes moving at over 800km/h with a slow Sigma 50-500mm lens into the sun is not the easiest of photographic tasks. I was blinded so bad by the glare my eyes are still smarting. Still, to get even this sort of focus surprised me. I hope you enjoy them! Obviously my favorite is the first of the images, isn’t that an amazing formation? Half way through a huge loop coming straight at us. If you look hard enough you can even see the two pilots (and the one guy flying solo, plane number 2).
I will post more pictures from the Air Show later next week, I have a busy weekend in front of me, so please enjoy these Friday Fun photos! I’ll make sure that I can visit the Air Show next year again. The best fun for free you can have in early November!
Pepsi Azuki
Pepsi Japan has done it again and release a new seasonal speciality, the Azuki bean. Of the foreigners I know living in Japan quite a few are not much into the rather peculiar taste of this very Japanese desert, I love it, most of the time. It is traditionally eaten as a new year’s desert and is an ingredient in many Japanese pastries. I didn’t have high hopes about this Pepsi drink, but I really enjoyed it. It taste a lot like cherry actually. Sadly, this drink will soon sell out, probably never to return. This time I think I will actually stack up on it.
Daddy Longarms
Found this cute little monkey at Design Festa 2009 in Tokyo last month. Couldn’t resist taking his portrait and chatting for a bit with his creator. Apparently it took her one week to knit this bad boy, and now he is on sale. Is there no love for long armed monkeys in this cold cold world of ours?
Ikebukuro From Above
Every now and then I feel I need to get a perspective on things, to put myself in proper relation with the city around me. Tokyo is like no other city on Earth and it is as easy to forget the city as it is to forget about oneself. Last weekend, right before closing time I went up the 60 floors of Tokyo’s Sunshine City Tower, once the tallest building in Japan but now relegated to a sort of sad has-been status. Still, it was my first time up there at night. It is not really meant for either viewing or photography with thick plate windows and deep alcoves making it hard to get a decent shot without glare or reflections. These pictures are of the north side, showing the endless city spreading out beneath us, home to over 13 million people in an area smaller than some Texas ranches. The biggest city in the world, welcome to Tokyo.
Oh, and please excuse my childish attempt at HDR on the last photo!
