Jonbu the baker

Shinjuku Hosted on Zooomr

I’ll be slowly blogging about this trip when I feel like, cuz nothing else exciting is happening around here for me, except for the Christmas shopping season, which is unpredictable at the moment. Lots of potential dollars to be spent. And I had this dream about getting 2 ps3’s. Must be because I was reading about the launch madness.

Shinjuku Hosted on Zooomr

All building photos today. I love building photos. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I love buildings.

This trip reminded me of the time when I went as a kid 15 years ago. Probably because I went as a kid this time, with my parents. And nothing has changed. Tokyo was a futuristic city when I visited 15 years ago, and it still is that same city today. Colorful neon lights, lots of people, and everything felt foreign, again.

Night Hosted on Zooomr

Looking out to Tokyo from a hotel room is like looking into the stars from a spaceship. It’s a big void, yet you feel there’s so much possibilities out there. Things seem so far away, yet everything’s right there if you’d just step out. Of course, you can’t step out of a spaceship.

I did say I’ll blog about the camera, so I must. Had to look for some dSLResque pictures out of my limited supply. If I may, I’m just gonna call my camera a SLR, which it is. dSLR just sounds.. too specific. So, SLResque pictures. I was looking for those. (-esque)

One thought that came while I was going through the pictures: I should’ve taken more pictures! I think i’ve said that in my last post. This is a lesson learned, I hope.
Another thought is, not all pictures are SLR worthy. In fact, most look like normal snapshots, just cleaner.

I started out wanting this camera.
It’s an anti-shake camera with a wide frame. The sensor itself has a wide-aspect, not just a normal crop like most cameras when taking wide aspect pictures. And it looks cool. I’d recommand it to anyone that doesn’t mind the sensor noise. I mind, so I had to look elsewhere.
The new Canon IXY or the G7 would’ve been perfect too, but they go on sale after my trip. So after feeding this challeng of finding a camera through my usual shopping process, I ended up getting the Pentax K100D. It’s cheap (relatively) and does everything (that an SLR would do). The focusing is a bit weak on this one, so is the pixel count. But that’s life.

roll Hosted on Zooomr

This was a test shot I did right after I got the camera. Had to do some practice before I go off with it. I think the roll of toilet paper is interesting enough to have it be posted here. If you think a picture of a roll of paper is not worth looking at, you’d be right. But this one is different. This one has a Goompa in it.

Ueno Hosted on Zooomr

Ueno at night. I think the anti-shake must’ve been working its magic right here, otherwise it’d have been blurry. Ueno is a good area that I didn’t get to spend a lot of time in. We arrived late in the day and simply couldn’t finish walking through all the markets.

Taipei - noodle Hosted on Zooomr

Some simple noodle. To go with the goose meat in the background, which was really the main dish. Yum. I wanted to go back to this place on the last day I stayed in Taipei, but they were closed. Sad.
Nothing much photographic to say about this one. Except that in taiwan it’s not common for people to carry huge cameras with them. I think it’s like leaving a backpack visible in your car. You don’t feel good about it. If you see someone with a huge camera on the street, he or she is most likely a tourist. And most likely from Japan.

So that’s it for now. Need to sleep.

I’m back! I’ve been back for a day or two, but been sleeping a lot and I’m still a bit jet-laggy. The trip was great but sadly I have to come back to work. Plus a big chunk of my savings is gone.The trip wasn’t entirely budget cuz I got a new camera for the trip. The cheapest dslr on the market, the pentax. I left it in tw. I can talk about it in another post later. The trip wasn’t very photographic tho, cuz it’s been cloudy / rainy, and taiwan wasn’t very photo-friendly. Hopefully I’ll find the mood to sort through some of those pictures.

I regret not taking more pictures, but when you’re right there, pictures aren’t your top priority. It’s always when I come back that I feel I didn’t get enough pictures. I forgot about that lesson; it’s been too long since I last travelled. Another thing was, because of the places I chose to visit, everything felt familiar in Tokyo. A lot of things I’ve already photographed.

The flight was long. The hotel was good. I got to spend more time in Tw this round, enough for me to start liking it.

One thing bugs me tho. Now that I’m back, it feel as if I’ve never left. I don’t feel refreshed, I don’t feel like I’m ready to work. It’s as if the trip was just a dream. So it’s not like if I just make one trip, then I’ll be able to live on for another 1.5 years. I made one trip, and now I want more, except I spent the all money and holidays, so I can’t get anymore. Sigh.

I feel like blogging.

Every night I don’t want to go to sleep, trying to drag the days longer. And every morning I don’t want to wake up, wanting my dreams to last longer. Most of us look forward to the future, but when you have something good at hand, it’s hard to let go.

How was that? Somehow it doesn’t fit well here. I think these abstract writings should go to my MSN blog. It fits well with the wanna-be attitude there. Juggling with multiple blogs is easy when you have nothing to write. It’s hard when each one takes on its own personality. This one here has become my Japan/Gadget/Real-life kind of blog. So to steer it back in the right direction, I’ll explain that the dragging the days longer thing has resulted in me waking up later and later. To a point where I’ve decided that I’d take a vacation and correct my “jetlag”. Which comes to my main point.

I’m taking a vacation. (woohoo!) Using up all my vacation days is a scary thought, because the next time I feel like I need a long break, I won’t have that many days available. I’m going on a trip with this vacation. It’s billed as “Back to Taiwan” trip, but in reality I look forward more to the Tokyo stopover. It’s gonna be a budget trip. Nothing luxurious for the common folks like us. No Disneyland (It’s still rated as the top Tokyo attraction on travel sites, my old travel book.. etc). Gonna stay close to the metro core bound by the legendary yamanote, where it matters.

I have nothing planned for the Taiwan segment. I should go check out the anti-president protests. Looks like a rock concert.

“Be who you are and say what you feel,
because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”

- Dr. Seuss