Author Archives: softpandawarmpanda
Kawagoe Matsuri in the Rain
If you are in Tokyo or neighboring Saitama prefecture this weekend the best way to spend it is of course to visit the massive Kawagoe Festival. A huge two day festival in the city nicknamed “Koedo” (Little Edo) for its many Edo period buildings and streets still remaining. The festival is known for its many dashi, mobile platforms each representing one of the neighborhoods in the city, paid for and operated by the towns people themselves. The weather is usually pretty good this time of the year but this weekend has seen nothing but rain and it was pouring when I visited Kawagoe yesterday. I took these photos of on dashi maneuvering through the narrow streets next to Kawagoeshi station, covered in plastic sheeting and pulled by rain coat wearing townspeople. The Tokyo and Kanto areas are usually blessed with fantastic weather most of the year so being outside shooting…
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Window Through the Storm
Actually These Are Cakes – Shinjuku Station Cake Shop
awesome!
Passing through Shinjuku station the other day I saw this cake shop, Maplies Cake, where they had some interesting cakes on sale, made up to look almost exactly like bowls of ramen, plates of gyoza and even some tenshinhan. I am lucky to even have noticed the sign!「実はこれ、ケーキです。」I did not get any close ups of the real things as I felt it would have been a little bit rude to shoot and run! Still if you are interested, go check them out for yourself. You can just go to the little underground square between Marunouchi line, Toei Oedo line and the JR lines. Let us know how they taste!
Reflections
really cool picture! I thought it was a ufo at first tbh
hel, poland
cool!
First Night – Ikegami Oeshiki Ceremony
amazing
Last night was the first of the three day long Oeshiki ceremony at Tokyo’s Ikegami Honmonji temple. The history behind this unique and rare buddhist festival is complicated but I did my best to explain it a little in this post from last year. The first night is merely a warm up, lots of people still turn up and the yatai (street vendors) are out in force! Most teams are busy preparing for the coming two days of dancing, chanting and manhandling the huge matoi poles through the streets of Ikegami. I caught one group practicing right next to the pagoda at the temple, but a few youth groups were out to give the coming generation a chance to get some live practice! Some of these matoi poles can be very heavy, I have heard of some that were as heavy as 80kg but no one can handle something like…
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And Baby Makes Three…
what a cutie! She has the same name as me =)
Meet Rachel, the new boss of our family. Though tiny in size (6.3 pounds) and young of age (6 days old), she is possessed of an iron will and a commanding voice. I suspect she also possibly possesses some latent mutant power which can make my wife and I run in circles one moment, and then coo in delight the next. Life’s going to be much more interesting from now on!
The Blues Of Saltholmen
Supertrees in Mauve II
wow!
Another mad dash to a different spot got me this view of the supertrees, this time with the Marina Bay Sands hotel in the background. The trees don’t stay a single color for long, and the magic hour was fading fast, hence my super mario antics. In fact, a few minutes after I took this shot, the colors started to change. Sometimes it takes a bit of luck, coupled with a complete disregard over how crazy and wild-eyed you look as you lug your heavy gear around.
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