One on One Bike Shop

Just before the Christmas shutdown at work, 3 co-workers and I visited this bike shop in downtown Minneapolis for lunch. We went to see the photos of Caroline Yang who is a local shooter that has been to the Tour de France for the last few years. Her work is really terrific. There is something about her colors that explode off the page. I hope to talk to her someday and see what she is doing in post because she must have a color recipe.

As if the photo shop wasn't enough, I was told before hand that I must see the basement of these place. You see, this location has had a few different shops but they have all had some kind of bicycle interest. As such they have collected a huge mass of bikes. There must be thousands of them just stacked on top of each other up to the ceiling. As you can see from a few of the photos I have.

My absolute favorite bike in the pile was an old kids bike with the banana seat and the monkey hanger handlebars. There were a million of them in the 70s. Well this particular one had a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer theme! I couldn't get a good photo of it because it was buried but you can see the embroidered seat. It also had a big metal plate with the logo between the top and down tube. It must had been some kind of company promotion. But to kids? What's up with that? If it wasn't $300 I would have bought it.

Pheasant Hunting

PheasantHunt_08
Originally uploaded by robbiehalvorson.

OK, so I'm catching up on some old news.

Just after Thanksgiving I was invited along on a pheasant hunt in LeSueur, MN. It was Linda's brother in-law, nephews, Linda's Dad Billy, and a bunch of others. I was really looking forward to it because it was my first ever hunting trip. I never was interested in hunt however I did think that pheasant hunting might be fun because it's usually a nice time of year and the hunts walk around most of the day. Unlike goose and duck hunters who have to hunker down in the wetlands or deer hunters that sit motionless in trees.
I did carry a shotgun for a time and took aim at a bird. But I never fired. I was try for the perfect shot instead of just blasting way. I realized that I was having just as much fine shooting my camera so I switched back to the camera for the rest of the day. I have all the photos on my Flickr account. Pheasant photos

Japanese Language Proficiency Test

For about a year I have been taking a class in Japanese once a week at work. That plus the 10+ years of dabbling in study lead to me deciding that I should take the JLPT this year.
The test is give once a year at various locations around the world. All on the same day mind you. As luck would have it, they give the test in Chicago not far from where Linda is pursuing her MBA. So it was really easy to drive down to Chicago and stay with her. While she was studying I was cramming for the test. The one snag in the plan was a snow storm in Chicago that forced us to leave quickly Thursday evening instead of the planned Friday departure.

There are actually 4 tests given depending on the takers skill level. I took the easiest one; 4. The test was 3 hours long and had three sections, vocabulary, listening, and grammar and was 100% in Japanese - no English. I knew going in that the listening would be very difficult and would be my worst section. So I really had to do well in the other 2 to compensate. My prediction came true, out of 16 question in the listening portion I completely understood 3 and partially understand half of the rest of them. But that was not unexpected so it didn't throw me off. I thought I did near perfectly on the vocabulary which also includes reading the kanji characters. At the beginner level we are expected to know about 100. I easily pass that part. The grammar part was more difficult but I only guessed on a few.

The results won't be in till March which is totally ridiculous. We answered on those computer score cards with the 'fill in the dot with 2H pencil' format. They should have been able to scan them at the door instead of waiting 3 months. Weird! A passing grade (which all anyone is looking for) is 60%. I feel I have about a 50/50 change of just barely passing due to the listening part. I did the math. If I get 85% or greater in BOTH the other sections I will pass.

So the fair question to as is; why? Why take the test. No, there's no true need at work, though I have worked with Guidant's marketing department in Tokyo. It IS considered an official test so there is some value on a resume. That is if I apply to a Japanese company that even knows with the JLPT is. No, mostly I just want to see where I'm at with the language and to motivate my study. If I don't pass I won't be totally disappointed - or surprised for that matter. I always assumed it was a long shot to pass.

Either way, I'll post the results in March.

All New, Sorta

Tonight I spent some time looking at my blog and blogging in general with blogger.com. They have added some nice features that I wanted to take advance of like labels. The new features need to be on their servers to work so I've switched the URL as well as all the files to blogspot.com. If you are reading this you've already figured that out. It also didn't really make sense to have it on mnmaya.com. I only had it there because I own the domain.

I also decided that it was time for a format change. I like the simple design but I'm not convinced it's the final one. Any thoughts?

Halloween 2006

IMG_2837
Originally uploaded by robbiehalvorson.

What I'm watching on TV

TV is important - at least to me. I watch a lot of TV but in the last few years I've tried it make it good TV ( good to me) and not just mindless surfing. Have a Tivo makes it easy. It records all the things I like and allows me to watch on my time. Tivo might be the greatest innovation ever.

So here is my list of the 'can't miss' shows.

Battlestar Galactica
The reimagination of this 70s show might be the best on TV right now. And that not just me saying that. They have created a compelling and believable scifi world with people that act and react like real people. They take chances and you never really know what might happen. BSG is exactly why I'm drawn to scifi. What is also very cool is that the creator, Ron Moore, makes a commentary of every episode that can be downloaded for free. Its a fascinating looking into the making of the show.

Lost
What I like about this show is the mystery. I hope it all means something.

Heroes
This is a brand new show so I don't have much history with it but in many ways it has combined what I like about Battlestar Galactica and Lost. A big mystery, scifi themes, and believable characters that I'm already engaged with after only 3 episodes.

There are other shows on the Tivo like 'Dog the Bounty Hunter' and 'The Simpsons' but those three are the ones that I make a point to see.

Animation Examples Online

I recently noticed that a lot of animation I did at work last year has found it's way to the internet. They were all done for a CD that is given to patients to help them understand their condition and the heart in general. It was a great project and, from what I heard, well received. It's fun to finally share some examples because most of what I do is considered confidential and is not on the internet.

The fact that I didn't even know they were on the web is not surprising. Once I create them I rarely if ever get to know where they are used and if they were even successful. Sometimes I find out that they have a life beyond there original intent which is always gratifying to me because that means it was valued.

The whole library site

My favorites (animations, not conditions :-) ) are:
Heart Failure
Sudden Cardiac Death
Atrial Fibrillation

Techy notes;
The animation was created in Maya using the vector renderer for the simple cartoony look. We opted for that over a more realistic look because it seems less shocking. It's also impossible to have one cross section of the heart that shows all 4 chambers. Most illustrations are greatly contorted for clarity. The animation was exported as Flash animation and in some cases was actually tweaked in Flash. Even though it's 2d, by using Maya I was able to use much better animation controls thereby giving the heart more realistic and accurate motion. I've looked at a lot of heart animations on the internet and I think these have some of the best motion.

Marathon Statistics

Before the race they had these wrist bands with the mile by mile pace you would need to complete the race in X amount of time. I had the 3:50:00 band. Today I was comparing the splits I recorded with my watch to the band when I realized it would be easier to type them in. So here is each mile, the 3:50 pace time, my time in bold, and my per mile pace. It's interesting to see when I started to lose the pace which was at 18 where I lost a 2 minute lead on the pace. It continued to slip for the rest of the race but I already knew I was going to beat my goal of 4 hours. So I was giving into my legs need to slow down. Mile 24 was pretty bad.

There were 3 mile markers that I somehow missed.

1) 0:08:47 - 08:42 8:42
2) 0:17:33 - 16:44 8:02
3) 0:26:20 - 25:04 8:19
4) 0:35:07 - 33:24 8:20
5) 0:43:54 - 42:00 8:35
6) 0:52:40 - 50:41 8:41
7) 1:01:27 -
8) 1:10:14 - 1:08:13
9) 1:19:00 - 1:16:41 8:27
10) 1:27:47 - 1:25:06 8:25
11) 1:36:34 - 1:33:44 8:38
12) 1:45:21 - 1:42:27 8:42
13) 1:54:07 - 1:51:17 8:49
14) 2:02:54 - 2:00:23 9:06
15) 2:11:41
16) 2:20:27 - 2:18:14
17) 2:29:14 -
18) 2:38:01 - 2:36:55
19) 2:46:48 - 2:46:16 9:20
20) 2:55:34 - 2:55:46 9:30
21) 3:04:21 - 3:05:16 9:29
22) 3:13:08 - 3:15:02 9:45
23) 3:21:55 - 3:25:20 10:18
24) 3:30:41 - 3:36:18 10:58
25) 3:39:28 - 3:45:00 8:41
26) 3:48:15 -
Finish 3:50 - 3:55:46

Race Report; Twin Cites Marathon

This was the big one.
This was the race that I've been training for all year. The one I sacrified many of my weekend bike rides for. Last Spring I decided that, if I could run 10-12 miles by April, I would enter the marathon for the first time. Even though they let in 10,000 people, the race fills in a couple weeks starting in April. So I had to decide then. I made the decision and got in.

The basic training for a marathon is to run normally then have one long run per week that gradually increases all summer till just before the race - then tapers off. Because I still wanted to participate in triathlons I had to juggle the 3 sports and do the long run on Sundays. As the runs on Sunday got up into the 12-15 mile range I really starting to not enjoy them. Usually running is my favorite over biking and swimming but it just gets boring to run for 2-3 hours. I bought an Ipod shuffle so I could listen to a few podcasts. That helped a lot.

The week before the race I did very little per the training guides I had read online. It was very hard not to, but the experts say that by that point you are as fit as you are going to be. Any more training won't help and the rest will help you more on race day. I believe that now.

Race day started at 5:30am for me. Because Linda was at school, I had to have my neighbor Kirk take me to the race. I owe him big for getting up at 6am on a Sunday! The race started at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. There were 10,000 full marathon runners plus another 5,000 for the half marathon. It seems half of the people were lined up at the restrooms. I suppose mostly because people are excited and/or nervous about the race. Luckily, I didn't need a bathroom because I'm a cool seasoned runner - plus I made sure to go before I left.
At the starting line the weather was perfect if not slightly cool for my tastes. It was around 60 degrees with clear blue sky at 8am when the gun went off. It took me almost 5 minutes to reach the starting line because of all the people. Everyone had a electronic chip on their shoe so that when we crossed a sensor at the beginning and end, our time was recorded. In the race were official people that ran exact paces. If you stayed close to them you would know exactly when you would finish. So for example, I started right behind the 4 hour pacer then passed him then the 3 hour 50 minute pacer. As long as they were behind me I knew I would finish below 4 hours. Neat huh!

The race itself was mostly uneventful. They make the claim that it's the most beautiful urban marathon and I totally agree. We wound our way through Minneapolis, around several lakes, along the Mississippi, then into St Paul, up to St. Pauls Cathedral, then finally to the state capital. I don't think there was ever more then a block without spectators and usually the streets were packed with people. I've run for 20 years and never seen anything like that. An amazing amount of support.

As for me I had a fairly good race. My energy level was good throughout. I took my gu packs every 6 miles and at least a little water at every water station (around every 2 miles). Around 15 miles my legs started to ache and my motivation started to fall. My parents were at mile 17 which was fun and lifted my spirits a bit. Soon after that I popped a couple Advil I had for the achy legs. I had anticipated that. It made a big difference as I crossed the Mississippi at mile 19. From mile 20 to 23 was mostly uphill and is usually a big challenge for most this late in the race. Revived by the Advil I was able to keep my pace up and powered up the hill. I passed a lot of people near St Thomas University. However I paid a bit for that because at the top of the climb near Snelling Ave my legs were really starting to get heavy. But with only 3 miles to go I struggled on. Reflecting now I was more having to overcoming the mind then the legs. It was very difficult because it's easy for me to talk myself out of uncomfortable situations especially when I was already ahead of my goal. But I pushed on. Miles 24 and 25 were a blur. Linda was along the last 500 feet cheering me on. I was able to sprite the final half mile to the finish line and crossed at 3 hours and 55 minutes. A sub 4 hour first marathon!

I felt fine as I walked through the exit chute but there were other runners littered across the grass. I later learned that many people had a problem with the heat although I though it was fine. I in fact wore a jacket for the first 10 miles and was glad I did. It just shows how everyone is different and you have to adapted the training, and racing, to your own needs.
All in all I'm glad I did it however I have no interest in doing another marathon. It was an amazing experience but I would much rather do the triathlons were I can be moderately competitive. I love running but just not that far. I will probably continue to run an occasional 10 mile but no more 15-20 milers!

My REAL First Animation

In a previous post I talked about my first animation. It actually wasn't my first. The first piece we did in that class was a simple 10 second animation done the old fashion way on an animation stand. We had to draw everything then place each drawing under a camera, snap a shot, advance the camera one frame, then repeat. It was terribly boring even with just 60-70 drawings to photograph - imagine doing thousands. I think the lesson was to show us why computers are the way to go.

For a long while I only had a video tape of the whole class and the 4x6 cards I drew on as a flip book. But recently I scanned everything into the computer and used After Effects to assemble and make adjustments. Much easier then the Oxberry.
Down load Fisherman.wmv

Tokyo #14; Shinjuku Alley

This shot was taken in a narrow back alley of Shinjuku, Tokyo. There were many restaurants crammed in along the way. Roy pointed out one that is famous (or infamous) for serving all sorts of gross things. I wanted to stop in but I was overwelmingly out voted. I didn't notice at the time, but I love that the obasan (old lady) stuck her head out the door as I snapped the shot.

Wakeboarding

A nice shot of my friend Jon Freeland on a wakeboard. We were at his brother Jason's cabin this summer. I didn't make it up on the board but did manage to drink lots of beer.

Big Storm Photos

On Saturday night there was a big thunderstorm that roared through the area. A tornado destroyed part of a suburb about 40 miles away but only skirted us. However it put on quite the light show for us at about 11 pm. Linda commented that it was like the movie 'War of the Worlds'. She was right - the sky was almost constantly ablaze. I couldn't resist, I grabbed my camera and headed for the patio. I set up the camera on my gorillapod and did some 2-4 second exposures. I mostly just continually shot for about 5 minutes. I guess the most interesting thing about this particular shoot was that I was still in only my underwear!

I had to really do some tweaking to make the exposure work but I really like what came out. Out of about 50 shots there were only 6 that had any sharp lighting and these were the 2 best of the 6.

Martin Zellar photos

Friday night we went to a free concert in the back lot of a church in our town. It seems like Minnesota churches (maybe elsewhere?) have gotten onto the idea of raising funds by putting on concerts and selling beer. Obviously it's working. The band was Martin Zellar, a somewhat famous local singer know for the former band Gear Daddies. If you've ever been to a hockey arena in North America, you've heard Martin Zellar's singing on the 'Zamboni Song'.



I took the chance to try out my digital camera and telephoto in the difficult conditions of shooting with available light and using no flash. As a rule there is actually a lot of light hitting the performers despite the dark surrounding. I tried various combinations of ISO settings and F-stops. As suspected, an ISO of 800 was about right. Martin's black shirt wasn't too hard to separate from the background. Actually I had to do very little post work. I used the beta version of Adobe Lightroom to make some slight adjustments. I'm really liking Lightroom and can't wait for it to be sold. I've used it to organize and tweak my photos all Summer. My only gripe is that the adjustment values have little correlation to the numbers I know from Photoshop. But the ease of tweaking exposure, etc, makes up for it somewhat.

All the photos turned out great. It was hard to pick out the best.

VO2 Max Test

VO2 Max is the measure of the maximum amount of oxygen volume a person can use during hard effort like running, biking, etc... I guess it would apply to anything that makes you breath hard. I had a chance to be a guinea pig at work for a demonstate of the test to measure VO2 max. The lead tester is also one of the cyclist at work - a damn good one as a matter of fact - so he was the one who got me involved.



To start they had to hook me up to a 12 lead ECG to monitor my heart rate (HR). Then they placed a facemask on to measure my inhaling and exhaling as well as the amount of oxygen (O2) I used. After getting everything strapped on a got on the stationary bike and started to warm up as the got the computer set up. Everything was recorded in realtime and present on a projector in front of the class. Oh yeah, I was in front of about 15 employees in that sexy little shirt! The mesh was to hold all the electodes in place as we excersize. Believe it or not before I slide it on it was about the size of a large sock!
The test began with a light resistance on the bike then increase every 30 seconds by 40 watts. That started to get hard after about 7 -8 minutes. Since I couldn't talk, they would show me a chart and I would have to indicate how difficult it was; easy, hard, very hard, etc,... The idea was to go to my absolute limit before I quit so that I'm at maximum heart rate. BTW there was a nurse there to monitor my blood pressure just in case. With my legs barely able to turn the pedals and lungs about to busting, I finally called it quits.
The test products a bunch of graphs and charts that I only half understood. But the bottom line numbers were that when I max'ed out at 440 watts my HR was at 184 and my VO2 max was 55 ml/kg. They told me later that that is 150% of what would be predicted for a 41 year old male (about 38 ml/kg).

Minnesota State Fair

Saturday was Boston Scientific Day at the fair. We got our 3 dollar discount tickets and yellow Boston Sci T-shirt so that hopefully a wandering company person would give us a prize. Neither of us won, surely because there were seemingly thousands of yellow Boston t-shirts. They were everywhere you could look. Linda and I both had people as us about whats up with all the yellow t-shirts. Some even wanted to know where we got them! This year I made sure to photograph everything we ate.

Ironically this year we really didn't eat as much as usual. The big item we were looking for was the hotdish on a stick which probably needs some explaining for some who are reading this. Hotdish on a stick is meatballs and tatertots covered in batter and deep fried. 1.) Hotdish, a uniquely midwestern term for cassaerole, often containing cream of mushroom soup. 2.) On-a-stick, many food items at the fair are served on a skewer like a corn dog for the ease of eating and walking. Now it's the theme to have every food on-a-stick. I liked it better then Linda despite the way she is chowing down in the photo.

In order here is the food we ate; Deep fried cheese curds, Sweet Marthas chocolate chip cookies and all-you-can-drink milk, a gizmo sandwhich, and finally a vanilla and strawberry shake.


















No trip to the fair would be complete without a trip to the dairy building to see the Princess Kaye of the Milky Way sculptures made from 100% butter. Each finalist in this beauty contest gets to keep her likeness in butter.








On the way out of the fair I grabbed a huge bag of kettle corn to take home. This place makes it fresh in this big kettle. I love this salty sweet treat.










And finally, after a long day of walking and eating, we felt just like this guy, the largest boar pig in Minnesota. I think he weighed around 1000 pounds.

Tokyo #13: Station of the Future

This subway station looks like it could have been a set for 2001; A Space Odyssey. It's obviously quite new. The walls are glossy and signs are all very graphic and high tech looking. Like the movie it shows a hopeful future - for public transportation.

Race Report; Heart of the Summer 10K

My company is a major sponsor of the race so I was able to register for free. Can't beat that. It was a 10K race (6.2 miles). The night before I started to get a slight cough and sneeze nose so I was skeptical about the race. As it turns out we are into a major ragweed bloom so allergy suffers are doing just that - suffering. However the race went really well.
At start time I was getting my watch ready when, BANG!, the start pistol went off. I think the suddenness surprised everyone. Usually there is the typical "Welcome, yadda, yadda, yadda". I didn't get my watch set right till mile marker 1 but I got someone to yell out something that sounded like 6:15. Excellent! I continued to clear my thoat for the entire run but otherwise felt really good. I was with a group of young people that maintained a steady pace. I was averaging about 7 minutes per mile so I was feeling good about my goal of sub 44 minutes. On the final lap (we did 2 laps around Lake Nokomis) I saw a big group of people gathering along what I thought was the finish line. So I started to really pour it on. Well, it turns out it was the start of the 5K race. My finish line was a quarter of a mile past it. Oh, no! My heart rate was way up and I was feeling the pain. But I backed off just a little, lowered the HR a few beats, and managed the last stretch. Into the chute I can see the finish clock already at 43:30. 30 seconds left! Can I do it! Yes! I cross at 43:40. A personal best in 10k racing. And with an allergy flareup!

Results: (the overall is only the men not everyone, weird)
overall place: 119 out of 311
age division place: 20 out of 42
gender place: 119 out of 311
time: 43:37
pace: 7:02

Race Report: Withrow TT, Aug

Time again for the monthly time trial in Stillwater. Same course as before. This time out I was more conservative and felt much better on the course. In the first 4 miles I caught the person 30 seconds in front of me and past him. After the 3rd corner, now heading into some good rolling hills, he had caught back up to me and was just behind me. Drafting is not allowed in time trials or triathlons so I was bugged that he was right behind me and staying there. To be fair, he might have been the 15 feet behind me, which is the rule, but it sure felt like he was closer. I backed off a bit and yelled at him about drafting but he didn't feel he was wrong. Who knows who was right. I was annoyed so I sped up to clear him. Now we are starting to catch the guy that's 60 seconds ahead of us and we pass him. 30 second man finally passes me. Then for the next 2-3 miles it's cat and mouse for the 3 of us. At one point I was behind one and boxed in from the side by the other. I decided to sprint clear of both of them but wasn't able to maintain the lead. My heart rate has been around 190 by this point. On the final corner the 30 sec guy is finally clear ahead of me and I make one last push past the 60 second rider and stay there till the finish. My finish time was mostly likely better then the other 2 because I had caught them.


In the end I probably worked harder and rode faster because of the 2 riders then any time I might have lost because of them. At 23.55 mph it was my fastest time of the summer but not my best ever. Steve the organizer took pictures of everyone as they started out. It was a good chance to look at how aerodynamic we all are. As you can see above, my back is hunched over which is bad for aerodynamics although fairly typical of normal road biking. A good aero position would have my back almost parallel to the ground.

After the race there was a raffle for prizes donated from Now Sport. I won a small bike pump.

Tokyo #12: Big Buddha

Ok, so I've been a little light on the tourist attractions. Here is one of the big ones - literally. We traveled about an hour south of Tokyo to the seaside city of Kamakura to see the 37 foot bronze statue of Buddha as well of some large temples and shines. We once again walked way to much. We bought a map of the area and figured it was an easy walk from one place to another however we found out it was drastically not to scale.
After Kamakura I decided to take us a like farther south to the island of Enoshima. The weather started to get kinda rainy so we only stayed of a short time before making our way back to Tokyo. A long day.

Tokyo #11: Miss Okinawa

While walking about in Shinjuku we came across Miss Okinawa. She was very pretty. So were the other 3 Miss Okinawas which made us wonder if they were really pageant winners or just hired beauties there to promote the island. Actually there was a lot of Okinawa things going on in Shinjuku that day.

Tokyo #10: Dinner

After one long hot day of walking around Tokyo, Linda and I dragged our sore feet back to our neighborhood to look for a nice place to have an ice cold beer. We ended up peeking into a nice looking izakaya called Umisen Yamasen which I believe means ocean spirit mountain spirit. Before we knew it the restaurant obasan (old lady) was seating us. We were the only people in the place of about 8 tables. Each table had a charcoal grill on it with large vents overhead to carry away the smoke and, more importantly, the massive amounts of heat coming from the habachi. We ordered up the combo platter of beef, fish, and vegetables - all uncooked. We then grilled everything ourselves. The fish were a bit disconcerning because they were whole, although they were completely gutted and looked very fresh. The problem was that we could not determine when they were cooked enough to eat. The beef and sausages were more familiar. Everything was delicious and the whole experience was novel and fun. FYI, I have a couple free beer coupons to the place if you're ever in the Shibuya/Shinsen area.

Tokyo #9: Toilet Part 2

As promised in a previous post, here is our second bathroom experience. This was in Shinagawa train station. As we were getting off the Yamanote train, I read a sign in Japanese saying 'Shinagawa Tip Toilet' in Katakana. That was enough to get me curious. It turned out that it was a restroom with an honor box to throw money into. But that was only the 'tip' of the iceberg with this restroom. The men's room was what I would expect to find on the starship Enterprise. It was all maple wood, white, chrome, and loads of back lit panels. It was so cool. The hand air dryers were such that you would stick you hands into a slot then slowly withdrawn them so that the water squeeged off. Just like coming out of a car wash dryer. It worked so slick! I tried to linger so I could get a picture but every time it vacated someone would walk in.

When I finally left Linda was waiting for me and was excited to tell me how cool the ladies room was! She said that there was a display panel that indicated which stalls were vacate or occupied so that a women would know which one to go to. I bet the Enterprise doesn't even have that one.

It's no wonder that they needed to ask for tips to use the bathroom. The station must have spent a fortune on it. I now realize that we were so in awe that we forgot to throw in a tip. Gomenasai!

Tokyo #8: ranKing ranQueen

In Shibuya station Linda and I found ranKing ranQueen. The premise of the store is that everything is ranked by it's popularity in it's category. So for instants you can pick up the #2 mineral water or the #4 book, etc... But they took it well beyond the popularity of popular things like water, books, DVDs, etc. I picked up the #1 callous remover and Linda picked up the #1 makeup remover. It was unclear to me (and others in the blogesphere) what the ranking is based on. Are they really polling people each day on their favorite ramen noodles? My guess would be that they put up 5 products in a catagory then monitor the sales to generate the ranking the following week. Just a guess. I would gave ranKing ranQueen my #2 shopping experiences during the trip. According to this CNN article, this particular shop gets 20,000 visitors a day. On this day Linda was the #1 customer .

Tokyo #7: Crotches

As Linda and I were resting our weary feet along Omotesando Dori (street) in Harajuku, I spotted this photographer and subject. Why is this man taking a picture of the guy's crotch? Usually I would chalk it up to a bad coincidence of angle and timing but he brought over another person to the same spot and took the same photo. Weird. But that's Harajuku for you.

Tokyo #6; Brides and Goths

While we were looking around Yoyogi Park and the beautiful Meiji Shine, we got to see a couple weddings taking place in the Shine. Or at least the wedding photos because that's all we saw going on. The bride and groom were in very tranditional kimonos that were amazing. Note the subtle pattern in her white robe. It was really warm that day so the bride was often shuffled to the shade and the waiting portable air conditioner. We felt very bad for her because she looked miserable. Plus, because Meiji Shrine is such a tourist attraction, there were quite a few people gawking and taking photos - including us. But the couple had to know that there would be such attention at the shine and probably liked it. It's their 15 minutes of fame so I didn't feel that bad. Linda and I were trying to decide if her hair was completely a wig or if it was her own. Linda thought it was a combination. I thought it was a wig.



In stark contrast to the bride in a traditional weddding kimono were the young girls just outside Meiji Shine dressed up in maid outfits and other fetish wear. Dressing in costumes has been a fad in Japan for a long time and Harajuku has always been a gathering point. In fact, these girls (and occasionally boys) were the inspiration for the Gwen Stafani song 'Harajuku Girls'. This area is probably one of the more bizarre examples of the old world and new world of Tokyo coming together. It's also my favorite spot in Tokyo.

Tokyo #5: Loco Roco

One of the things on my shopping list for Japan was the PSP video game, Loco Roco. It's only available in Japan although I've since learned that it's coming to the US Sept 5th. I still like having the Japanese version - it's more authentic and it makes me practice reading Japanese!
The game has become one of my all time favorites. Not that the game itself is so great, its ok. It's the combination of game, graphics, and music that make so perfect. The style is very simple and graphic but it fit the quirky gameplay. You only use the right and left buttons to tilt the world and make Loco Roco roll right or left. But it's the music and sound effects that really shine. I've had the songs on my mind ever since I first played it. They're wonderfully annoying. I'm not the only one that is so effected. My friend Roy in Tokyo blogged about the infectious music as well. At first I thought they were singing in Japanese but actually it's all made up.
The follow YouTube video will show you what I'm talking about. Warning! If you play it more then once you will be humming it for the rest of the day!

Tokyo Trip #4: Tsukiji

Tsukiji Fish Market is one of the big tourist spots in Tokyo. What says Japan more then tons and tons of fresh fish as well as every other imaginable (and unimaginable) sea animal. Tsukiji is the largest fish market in Japan - it's huge. All the guide books say that you have to be there by 6am or it will be all over, especially the tuna auctions. It's a real working market so the tourists have to be constantly aware of the men on their motorized carts buzzing around at high speeds. The man in the photo is inspecting the fish. He and the others would walk up and down the rows, flip up a flap of tuna flesh, shine a flashlight on it, then move on. It seems to me that they were doing more 'busy work' then actually inspecting.

The second photo is of an ice block making machine. It really caught my eye because, by the look of it, it's been faithfully churning out ice blocks for probably 100 years. I believe the sign on front is the pricing.

After the market we had tempura soba (noodles) at a nearby stall along the street. Usually people go for the freshest sushi on Earth in the resturants surrounding Tsukiji, but neither of us were up for raw fish for breakfast at 7am.

Tsukiji on Wikipedia
My photos on Flickr

Velodrome

I went with 4 co-works that I ride bike with to a local velodrome in Blaine, MN. One of the guys actually races there weekly and the others were just trying it out. I opted to take photos instead but I'm willing to admit that the track scares me a bit. The end embankments are 42 degrees then tapper down - but not much. The other scary thing is that they were using real track bikes that don't have the ability to coast. So you always have to be turning the pedals or else the pedals will start turning you! Crazy! After watching it for the first time, I thought that it looked kinda fun. But it will still be a while before I'll try it.

Mostly I went along to try out my new 70-200mm Canon zoom. It's an awesome lens that I got just before the Tokyo trip. I wanted to try it out on active subjects because I don't have a lot of experience doing that. With the longer lens I could get farther away and keep them in focus more easily. It was still hard though and I missed many many times. Got to love deleting on the fly. The auto focus was never fast enough. By the time it ranged the subject they were already closer and out of focus. It worked better to use manual focus, find a spot to set the focus, then shot as they entered that zone of focus. The photo finish shot on the left was a rapid fire shot of 4 frames. that I combined in Photoshop. They weren't really racing each other.

The rest of my photos are on Flickr

Tokyo Trip #3: Toilet, Part 1

Home bath rooms and toilets are far more high tech then anything in the US and our apartment was no different. Please note that I said bathroom and toilet separately because in Japan they are their own rooms. They may not even be close to each other.
Most all Japanese home toilets have a hand washing bowl on top of the tank as you can see in the photo. With each flush, new water first goes through the top where you can rinse your hands, then is collected in the main tank as normal . This way there is no wasted water. Why isn't this used here in America? The flush handle has a large flush and a small flush for either solid or liquid flushes - you with me? Again, ingenious!

Our apartment toilet also had the high tech option of a build in bidet complete with a Captain Kirk control pad on the side. There were not one but 2 different stream options as can be seen in the icons - with the stop button on the left. It was a first for both of us. Linda is a convert, I am not.




The separate bath area was no less high tech. It had a typical Japanese bath, or furu, and a shower head with the entire room being water proof. The bath is really deep but only big enough to sit in, no stretching out here. The bath was filled once for the week and because we showered before entering, it was always clean. Again, in the hopes of saving water. The contol planel on the wall could control the temp of the bath and the shower separately and the black panel on the top was the LCD TV. There was also a duplicate control panel in the kitchen so that we could warm up the bath when we got up in the morning. Great for those cold winter mornings! Once again Linda was totally sold on the Japanese style bath however I stuck to just the shower. We both liked the bath TV.


Yes, the title says part 1 because I will be posting more about toilets.

Tokyo Trip #2: Apartment

Our friend Dan's Japanese cousin, Harumi, graciously helped us get an apartment for the week in the trending area of Shibuya. The apartment was a short 4 minute walk from Shinsen subway stations but it also ended up being only about 10 minutes by foot to the much larger and better connected Shibuya station. Chances are that if you've seen a photo of a bustling Tokyo street it might have been right outside Shibuya station. We ending up using the closer Shinsen station only twice. Shinsen would be a great area to live. Every day we walked by many nice resturants and bars (more on those later) and there was also a good sized market.










Our apartment was small but quite comfortable. Actually it was small by US standards but fairly typical of a Tokyo apartment. As a general rule, it's important to distinguish Tokyo from the rest of Japan just like New York standards of living must be distinguished from the rest of America. It was far better then either of the previous places I had lived in while working in Japan. We even had our own clothes washer.
It was such a bonus to have an apartment instead of a hotel room because it allowed Linda to get a feel for how it is to live in Japan. She's been in hundreds of hotel rooms so that experience would have been about the same as everywhere else. The apartment also ended up being far cheaper then a Tokyo hotel would have been. We were extremely lucky to have Harumi san find it for us.