modusoptimus

December 3, 2006

Montreal

Some pictures from a weekend trip to Montréal:

November 1, 2006

Halloween

It was Halloween again. The word Halloween is the short version of All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before “All Hallows’ Day”.

To this year’s party we went as James Bond with Bond girls and villain. The pictures are here.

October 21, 2006

Sky mirror by artist Anish Kapoor stands three stories tall and weighs 23 tons. The convex side faces Fifth Avenue, the concave side faces the Rockefeller Center courtyard. It reflects the center’s skyscrapers (inverted), and as the artist has stated, “brings the sky down to the ground”.

This fire alarm command station in the lobby of a Manhattan office building looks like a futuristic design but dates from the 70′s.

Also during this day:

October 16, 2006

Digital reflections

Reflections in a Midtown Manhattan building. This is a blended combination of two other images. While I’m not a big fan of digital manipulations, I’m pretty much inspired by Made in Tokyo.

October 8, 2006

Tokyo

Tsukiji fish market (築地市場) is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world and also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind. The market opens at 3AM and fish auctions start at 5AM. I got there a little before 8AM when is is the most busy as the fish starts to be loaded onto trucks or small carts and moved to the many shops located there. In 1923 some 20 private markets in Tokyo were destroyed almost completely by the Great Kanto Earthquake. After the earthquake, Tokyo City as it then was undertook to construct a central wholesale market on the bases of the Central Wholesale Market Law which had been promulgated in the same year. As a result, the market of Tsukiji was founded.

After the fist market, direction north of central Tokyo to Rikugien garden, which means “six poems garden” and reproduces in miniature 88 scenes from famous poems. Rikugien is all a traditional Japanese garden should be: manicured grass, artfully contorted pine trees held up by wooden supports, wooden tea houses and moss-encrusted stone lanterns, crooked rustic bridges over gurgling streams, a lake filled with carp and tiny turtles. This garden must be perfect during spring blossom and late fall. Unfortunately the sky was completely covered, resulting in a very dull lighting.

Walking south, you fall on Nezu – a surprising neighborhood. Old style, small wood houses make you think more of a small town than a mega city. A little more further the Ueno Onshi park is surrounded by skyscrappers (the hotel shown here has a a very odd structure especially given very strict construction rules because of earthquakes).

Meiji Jingu shrine in western Tokyo is dedicated to the souls of Emperor Meiji(-1912) and his wife, Empress Shoken(-1914). The outer preccint is used today for traditional Shinto weddings.

Korea

Finally I updated the photo gallery with some pictures from South Korea. The pictures from this two-week travel are mostly from Seoul.

We made a tour in the DMZ (demilitarized zone). The DMZ is a 4km wide strip of land that serves as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. In 1953, at the end of korean war (3 years long), the DMZ was created as each side agreed in the armistice to move their troops back 2,000 meters from the front line. Inside the DMZ, there is a place called Panmunjeom, home of the Joint Security Area. This is the only place where North and South connect. There are a number of buildings on both the north and the south side of the border and a few which are built right on top of it. This Joint Security Area is the location where all negotiations since 1953 have been held. It is very impressive as south korean soldiers face their north counterparts in a “taekwondo” position.

Then we moved for two days in the eastern part of Korea to Sokcho and Seorak National Park.

The Korean folk village in Suwon (south of Seoul – can be reached by subway) displays traditional elements of Korean life and culture. There are numerous replications of traditional houses, and they vary by the social class of the owner (paesant, farmer, landowner, nobleman) and the various regions of Korea (northern, central, southern, islands).