Kegon Falls 華厳の滝

Kegon Falls, Nikko, Tochigi, Japan. At the heart of winter.

Frozen

Looking like a Black metal album cover.

Deep.

Frozen Yoyogi #JapanScapes

7 Days 7 Minutes (2012-11-25)

MONDAY 00:00:00 - Want Music?
TUESDAY 00:01:00 - GINZA
WEDNESDAY 00:02:00 - Winter Drive
THURSDAY 00:03:00 - Akiba Article
FRIDAY 00:04:00 - A Painful Car indeed
SATURDAY 00:05:00 - OMIYA
SUNDAY 00:06:00 - Piece of Shit Camera

Tuesday Tune: お願い (Onegai) By MANNY MARX http://mannymarx.bandcamp.com/track/onegai
You can get his music free... or you can pay however much you want.

Wednesday link: Japan How It Is: Fukui City http://youtu.be/nH6P4PO55fU

Friday link: My Article on PC World: http://goo.gl/7MshcP

Iiyama Snow Festival [On Location 03]

Went up to IIyama in Nagano with the Cat and her family to check out the snow festival there.

Best snow day so far…

Last week It actually snowed enough for the roads to get dangerous (or fun if you can drive).

Thanks to La Niña, the first year I bother to buy studless tires, there is no bloody snow to warrant them. It was good to finally see if they actually made that much of a difference...

A Day in Dubai [On Location 2]

A short clip of what video I took while we were in Dubai... read the blog post for the words and more pictures
Music:
North Sea Praise Cult: Foam Coast (part 1)
by Pepet Zintle
thank you for letting me use your sound.

A Day in Dubai

So The Cat and I went home to South Africa over the festive season so I could introduce her to my family and show her where I grew up and stuff. I like to fly emirates so We decided to spend a day in Dubai on the way.

Fukui City, Fukui Prefecture [On Location 1]

I spent a day in Fukui Prefecture with my old university buddy. We checked out a few things and chatted about the place. Take a look.

Drive To Almost Nikko

What better way to kick off the new year than to tell you about shit that happened in 2012. My neck is stuffed so I am at home and have free time so why not get the backlog out of the way…

The cat and I got into the car and went for a drive. We had a general Idea of direction but no destination was planned. We headed up Mt. Akagi at first and were worried by the piles of snow on the side of the road. Being late autumn, we new some snow had already fallen but we expected less. There were some threatening clouds in the sky too but they dumped their load on the peaks slightly above the level of the road.

Shots #82 perfect

Shots #81 Too cool for the cold

I posted this on my tumblog a while back but that was just a crop out of the camera. I tweaked the levels and white balance this time around.

Come in Echo Base…

“> Well, I finished my circle. I don't pick up any life readings.

<There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. Sensors are placed. I'm going back.”

quote: The Empire Strikes Back

We went strawberry picking because my lady had invited her friends and brother from Nagano to Gunma to have a jol. When we had degusted on the strawberry goodness we decided that a trip up to the shrine on lake Akagi would be a great plan.

Strawberry fields

Let me take you down 'cos I’m going to strawberry fields…

Yeah strawberry picking season is here. At the Harada Strawberry Farm, ¥1200 (R120) gets you 30 minutes, a plastic tray and unlimited condensed milk top-ups. A ¥1200 box of strawberries holds about 36-40 strawberries.

To make it worthwhile, you need to be a fiend.

For me that’s something that comes naturally…

And there was light.

Another year has come to an end and with that comes another trip to the top of Mt.Haruna to see the illumination. We once again made our way to the top of the mountain to see the spectacular.

UNI-BLOW

Winter is here... Time deal with all the UNI-CLO (Japanese Mr.Price) worshippers going on and on about their trademarked HEAT TECH crap as if it is some magical all fixing wonder clothing. You can buy cheap polyester from any old store and save on the trademark premium. Of course you wont be as cool as uniclones, but who wants to be cool in winter?

Mother Nature responds…

If you recall, I have been quite pleased with the awesomeness of this winter, in particular the LACK of snow in my neck of the woods. Mother nature decided she wasn’t going to let me have my cake and eat it…

Shots #44 Winter 2010-11

This might be the best winter I have experienced here. Leaving aside the recent brutally bitter cold and my massive use of kerosene, I am thouroughly enjoying this winter compared to the previous 2.

My first winter here was a shocker. February gets down to Harrismith levels but even during Jozi temps, the lack of insulation made it brutal. Apparently it was a warm winter. The lakes didn't fully freeze and there wasn’t much great snow on the slopes. In total it had snowed 4 times in Shibukawa and there was a good load of piled up ice around the place.

My second winter here I was prepared for, or so I thought, It was quite a bit colder than the previous year. There was record snow in Shibukawa and it snowed 7 or 8 times (I lost count) and it was quite annoying getting around. The ski goers were going on and on about that white fluffy crap… I on the other hand had not been so depressed in my life.

This year seems to be the best of both worlds. The slopes are covered in craptonnes of the finest powder (thats good right?) and only once so far has it made it over Komochi, Akagi and Haruna to sprinkle 3-5 cm on Shibs. Added to the fact that I don7t spare any expense in keeping warm, It has been a very pleasant winter. My lady might also have something to do with it too. So far so good. It may snow again here but its already feb. It shouldnt be bucketloads.

With the snow is in the mountains… All is right with the world.

Shots #40 taking the piss

Will be testing out a few new mobile blogging platforms since Blogpress has not improved over all this time. let's see if anyone has cracked it yet. Today. A shot of winter. Gunma style. Platform: BlogSpace.

Ice Ice Baby!

I get to school and the field is frozen over… no not frost. Frost is for pussies…
IT WAS AN ICERINK!!!! and it could sustain my weight with minimal cracking… needless to say I had fun sliding around on it… my skill on skates shone, even though i was wearing skate shoes :p Students were suitably impressed and that’s all that really matters in the end :p

Komochi Children’s Home… Round 3

I love this place.

I really do.

This session was a valentines day shindiggerymabobbie. Essentially we made V-Cards for each other. Kids had a blast, I had a blast. that's all that matters really ;)

The kids were in top form. Genki and super excited to have us there. I don't know how much it really means to them but I reckon it must be pretty damn good just judging by their excitement at having us there.

They do have a tendency to mock our horrific Japanese but its all in good fun. I don’t have any problem with it… Poor Jeevy however got quite uptight about it. I say its their way of appreciating us being there for them. They really don’t want to insult us.

   

Jeevs had a pretty cool game which I intend to steal and strip of it’s Canadianism re-use at Kita-chu

  Not much else to say really… I’ll go back!