Chinese New Years was this last week and there was a big celebration at Chinatown in Yokohama. There were fireworks and this weekend there was a Dragon Dance (I missed it - went and ate Indian food at an Indian friend's apartment instead). Anyway, Chinatown is very interesting - tons of restaurants. I also found some other good places to take visitors such as the doll museum, red brick warehouse shops, Yamashita park, etc.
The picture just above shows the palm readers. I think this must be a big activity at New Years just like getting a new fortune at the temple is. I have seen Japanese fortune tellers and palm readers before but not quite like this. These were lined up in a row and doing great business. Also, they were using magnifying glasses to see the palm better. Chinese palm readers must really be into detail.
I missed a couple of photo opportunities this weekend. I always carry my camera with me. But this last week I cleaned out my backpack to organize it. I was trying to find my camera and thought I'd left it out of the backpack. So I missed an opportunity to photograph the Tokyo marathon and also what looked to be a photography club in the park by the apartment.
There were about 100 people in four groups photographing these girls posing in the park. It wasn't a fashion shoot or anything like that. I've seen those here before and in London. I think it was a bunch of goofy guys in a club (gee - I wonder if they would let me join?). There weren't any women except the 4 girls being photographed. Anyway, I could have got behind the girls and photographed the guys looking silly but I missed it because I couldn't find my camera.
Turned out it was in my backpack hidden behind the umbrella. I thought for a while I had lost it. I have really enjoyed taking snapshots and would have had to have bought a new digital camera immediately if I hadn't found it. By the way, if you want to see some more snapshots just click on the picture of Yebisu at right. I will put some more over there from time to time.
This week's new food word is "nameko" - a kind of small button mushroom put into Miso soup. They didn't have my usual "shijimi" - small clams - so I tried the nameko and tofu. Tasty.
By the way, HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
V=1220
1 comment:
OK - here is the story of the shinkansen driver. One day Roy and I were at the Izakaya trying to order food. Two guys were next to us so we just started ordering whatever they were ordering. They thought that was pretty funny so we started to try to talk to each other.
I told him I was an engineer. He told me he was an engineer too. But it turned out he was a real engineer - the driver of a train. And the shinkansen at that - the bullet train.
So I asked him about the signals they give when they leave the station. He showed me how to do it but I was never qualified to drive the train. Apparently it is one of those things that only trained experts should do and you shouldn't try at home.
Post a Comment