Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! May all your spooks be friendly and white...and may all your witches be nice. ;-)

Now, if only I could get the better half to take turns answering the door for trick-or-treaters...

Fleeting Moments

This picture of a young girl with a hummingbird feeding out of a flower in her hand speaks to the preciousness and fleeting nature of life and the moments we share with the people we care about. I'm posting this picture for Brian, a dear coworker and perhaps one of the hardest working people I knew, who passed away this Sunday.

I certainly did not intend yesterday's posting to be prophetic and find the irony very heartbreaking. I question whether it is the fault of the bosses who pushed him to the breaking point or of Brian for quietly accepting past all point of reason. Brian was days short of his 50th birthday and engaged to be married for the very first time. Brian was the third person in our division to pass away in a handful of years and speaks to the toll that working in high technology can take.

If there is a silver lining to this, I suppose it is in the message that life is precious and brief and that we need to make the time to share with the people in our lives. It is particulary poignant to me as I found myself jetting back across half the globe to spend my birthday at home with my better half only days prior. Brian, perhaps, has finally found peace and a better place.

Is There Life After Work?

You work and you work and you work and one day you wake up and you're old... You've put off all of the fun things you thought you'd do "some day". Retiring early disappeared into just so much inflation and stock market dust. Is there really life after work or are we just destined to work until we're not useful to the employers anymore?

Osaka Harbor

Sunset on Osaka harbor. The building to the left is the Kaiukan aquarium. To the right is a freight loading dock. They had a huge yellow freight crane hanging over the edge of the roof of the aquarium. I'm guessing that the roof opens up to the sky so they can use the crane to pull up those huge whale sharks and miscellaneous sundry dolphins, tuna and seals that they had on display.

Victoria Vox Rocks

I ran into Victoria Vox at the San Diego Ukulele Festival. I was expecting something more traditional and Hawaiian but what I got was very lighthearted, playful rock/pop. I bought one of her CDs, Victoria Vox: and her jumping flea," which she had graciously autographed. I have been listening to it ever since. Just in case you're wondering, uku is Hawaiian for flea and lele apparently refers to jumping. The name Ukulele was given to the the 4 stringed instrument, orginally brought to Hawaii by the Portuguese, and so named because of the rapid way that the players fingers jumped from string to string. Hmmm... Vox Rox, heheheh, that rhymes doesn't it?

Fugu Sashimi

Fugu is Japanese for puffer fish. Puffer fish are poisonous; however, in Asia, eating Fugu is considered quite a delicacy. Apparently, the toxic parts are centered in the organs of the puffer fish and, with careful preparation, the meat can be prepared safely.

This plate contains Fugu Sashimi (ie, raw Fugu), delicately arranged like a lotus flower. In Japanese Sushi, the art of preparation is considered as important as the taste. As for the taste? The tempura is pretty decent but the sashimi tastes kind of like whatever you dip it into, lacking much taste of its own.

Seoul Hillside

The older areas of Seoul are packed with wall to wall houses and apartments, many with only walking paths between them. In this picture, a church managed to eek out some space at the top of the hill. There is a fairly large Christian presence in South Korea (and hence quite a few churches), likely due to the long standing American presence. There are an equally large number of Buddhist churches/monasteries as well.

Big, Big and Bigger (Whale Shark)

Now there's a mouth for you! Whale sharks are plankton feeders, opening their huge mouths to capture passing copepods and crustaceans, plankton and even schooling fish, sometimes as large as tuna.

Meanwhile, I'm headed home after two weeks of kimchi and fish tempura. Ironically, I'm craving a bowl of oatmeal with raisins. Go figure.

Osaka Castle From Afar

I chose this picture of Osaka Castle from afar because the lush tree cover allows one to image just what the castle and surrounding areas might have been like during the Tokugawa Shogunate. Construction of Osaka castle was started by 1583 by Toyotomi Hideyoshi and has been burned down and rebuilt twice. It originally sported three deep moats that were virtually uncrossable during that time period. After a successful invasion of the area, the two outer moats were buried to make the castle less defensible to thereby reduce its potential as a fortress for area domination.

The Lights of Seoul

The streets of Seoul are full of huge screens, lighted signs and ful motion video. Some of the companies have full walls covered with LCD screens and even columns with lifelike animated dancing girls. Even the restaurants have big screens with music videos and other entertainment. The buildings are often covered in marble and granite as are huge sweeping stair cases. It makes the streets and halls of Manhattan look almost plain.

Seoul Lights

This picture was taken from the same point as my last posting. However, the cool, crisp and windy weather has cleared all that haze and smog out of the city resulting in stunning nightime views. If you zoom in close enough and can read Korean (heh), you can even read the signs! In this picture, the lights of Seoul and the ever present stream of traffic reflect crisply off of the Han River. This photo is a timed exposure taken at ASA400 and down stopped by 0.7.

View of the Han River

While it was hot and muggy in Tokyo, the regional weather has changed and, now that I am in Seoul, the weather is cold, overcast and windy. When we arrived in Seoul, there was a layer of haze as seen in this picture that resulted in an almost surreal glow over the city and the Han River. A night of rain and wind blew off the haze as you will see in the next posting.

Dragonflies for Brunch (Black-Backed Wagtail)

I saw this Black-Backed Wagtail, Motacilla alba lugens, living around a Japanese pond. It would take off like a rocket, rapidly flying in acrobatic form as it chased brilliantly colored dragonflies that lived along the pond. It was fairly successful at catching the dragonflies and can be seen here with one that it chose for an early morning brunch.

Generational Change

It is amazing to see the dramatic differences between the different generations in Japan. It's not uncommon to see the youngest generations in rebellious Western clothing and with wildly colored hair while, perhaps on the same subway or in the same park, you may find an older woman such as pictured here in a traditional kimono.

Otter Looking for Company

This little otter did not want to be left in the lurch so he's hanging on to his buddies tail in a toothy sort of way. There were originally four little otters but the first two bailed into the water leaving this one straggler trying to keep some good company.

Whale Shark

Here's a picture of a whale shark that I saw up close and personal, admittedly through a thick plate of plexi but wow, what an experience. It's always a little amazing that creatures that big can live off of plankton.

Guest House at the Imperial Palace

This is a view of the guest house at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo from one of the neighboring skyscrapers. It is impressive by it's sheer size as well as the size of the neighboring wooded area. I dare say it dwarfs just about any guest mansion I've ever seen.

Making a Difference

In my travels, every now and then you will see crosses, flowers, stuffed animals and other memorials along roadsides, along the ocean or along other potentially hazardous areas. Sometimes I wonder who these people were, what they are remembered for and what they could have been had they lived. Perhaps it is all so much irrelevance to our current lives and yet, to someone, they continue to matter enough that these little things are left to let us know that someone that mattered passed this way.

Quake in Hawaii

There was a 6.6 magnitude earthquake in Hawaii this morning just offshore of Kawaihae (about 10 miles North of Kailua-Kona). There were power outages on the major islands and limited property damage. There were long lines for food and water at the few stores that remained open as many people acted on the worst case scenario although it appeared that overall damage was limited. While calls were going through, the power outages complicated getting through to loved ones.

Baja Winery

You get to thinking that wine all comes out of little oak casks and is still crushed by purple toed workers but really, wine making is big business and there is nothing little about the huge vats that it is made in.