Taken in the Marriott hotel in Nagoya, the sign on the right is a classic example of Engrish. You can find a lot more examples at engrish.com and plenty more in the archives of the “An Englishman in Nyu-gun” blog – another blog from Japan written by an Englishman, this time a vegetarian one. I can sympathise with the problems finding food (and I agree that the okonomiyaki is a great option though!). I’ve added this blog to the links section too.
In addition to the excellent Tokyo Times blog, I’ve added An Englishman in Osaka to the links section in the left column. This is another blog from Japan written by an Englishman, and well worth a visit.
Why the photo on the right though? No connection at all! Well, other than the fact that it was taken in the hotel elevator at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, in Japan. Since the only buttons in the elevator control which floors it stops at, the instruction is impossible to follow. Made me smile though thinking about trying all those “channel” buttons on the elevator wall to see if I could find another channel to enjoy 🙂
As part of his recent trip to the US, PhotoSydney’s Ben spent some time here in San Francisco and managed to find time for some shots of the city. Jump over to his posting on PhotoSydney for all the photos. (While you’re there you should take a look at the Boston photos too: 1 and 2.)
The final one of the three photos of posters for the recent Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie that I took in the lobby area of the Megabox movie theatre in Seoul, Korea. The scene in this one is taken from the big Obi-wan vs Darth Vader fight towards the end of the movie. And, yes, that is lava you see in the background.
The second of three posters for the recent Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith movie that I took photos of in the lobby area of the Megabox movie theatre in Seoul, Korea.
One of three posters for the recent Star Wars movie that I took photos of while in Korea. The Megabox movie theatre was part of the COEX underground mall (they claim that this is the largest underground mall in Asia, and it is huge so I can well believe it). This is the same mall that I found the Apple Experience Center in last time I was in Seoul.
Makuhari is home to a number of high tech companies, as well as the Nippon Convention Centre (Makuhari Messe). In amongst the modern skyscrapers are high level walkways and garden areas, all with hedges of Japanese rhododendron. All of these hedge rows were in bloom while I was there on the last day of my recent trip to Japan, and I managed to capture a few macro shots, including this one, using the S500‘s macro feature.
What more can really be said about this. It is a statue of Godzilla in the region of Tokyo known as Ginza.
The Shinkansen (bullet train) we took from Tokyo to Nagoya pulls into the station in Tokyo. This was only the second time I had been on one of these trains. Since we were not boarding at its origin, it was already pretty full, but we had assigned seats in one of the reserved seating cars. As with most of these high speed trains, the trip was uneventful. The ride is exceptionally smooth, and unless you look out of the window you’d never know you were on a moving train!
Inside, the seats are comfortable and have a surprising amount of legroom – more than the economy class on any aircraft I’ve ever been on. As with an aircraft seat, they recline and there is a tray table mounted on the seat in front of you. A food service cart passes through the train offering anything from beer and snacks to a full bento box meal.
This building looked as though it had just been reconstructed. All the wood looked new, and the structure was perfect. At the same time, the construction techniques that had been used looked to be original. Inside, as you can see in the photo, was a very large drum.