BRIGHT ON COLOURS

MELBOURNE 2014

Food-ing and beach-ing our way through Melbourne's beachside suburbs of Brighton and St Kilda.  Sorry, but Sydney wins this round, though Melbourne gets bonus points for the decorating.

BUILT TO THE NINES

MELBOURNE 2014

The devil's in the details when it comes to Melbourne's architecture.

EBISU GARDEN PLACE

Ebisu (恵比寿) and Ebisu Garden Place, especially, is where the architectural outliers of Tokyo go to play - the buildings are ornate and European-fantastical and you could be excused for thinking you've taken a left turn into Germany at some points. Even the train station feels like an airport, full of walkways that speed you through a tunnel from the station to the clock tower.

It's a lovely, peaceful place to wander and pass the time soaking in the unique buildings and atmosphere.
The clock tower square in Ebisu Garden Place gave me my Hana Yori Dango fangirl moment about 7 years late and, by the looks of the copious Christmas themed stalls surrounding the famous 'Doumyoji waiting sculpture', Japan's moved on from those days as well.

TOKYO TOWERING

I'd been to Tokyo Tower on a previous visit to Japan, also cutting through Zojoji Temple so I honestly had not planned to retrace my steps there. But V had to go to Tsukiji that morning to get some knives and I didn't particularly want to join her (also having visited Tsukiji last time) so I had an hour or so to burn in Hamamatsucho by myself and decided to go for a bit of a walk.

I could honestly have gotten as far as the Tower but settled for hanging around Zojoji Temple, watching a brilliant performing monkey, fabulous street fashion and just soaking in the good weather and autumn sights.

NEON & PRAYER

Asakusa (浅草) and Akihabara (秋葉原) are physically less than a 15min ride apart on the subway but two entirely different atmospheres and potentially time periods as well. Somewhat unexpectedly, I didn't end up taking too many photos in the sea of visitors in Sensoji and neither in Akihabara - perhaps it was camera weariness, perhaps it was buying a gigantic weekender bag on bargain and hence feeling weird enough lugging it around or perhaps it was simply wishing to experience the moment.

Go figure. 

GHIBLI NEXT DOOR

At the Studio Ghibli Museum, where taking photos inside would have been a dream but, unfortunately, was not allowed and my Canon 5D is not exactly capable of taking sneaky shots

Words and other details at The Afterimage

ODAIBA BY DAY AND NIGHT

An entire day's worth of photos from Odaiba (お台場), particularly inside Venus Fort and Tokyo Leisure Land. Such a unique experience to be removed from the urban bustle of Tokyo and thrown into a wide expanse of suspended walkways and intricate novelties. Like all of Tokyo in cosplay mode.

More words and reflections on our excursion here at The Afterimage.

TALE OF TWO CITIES

Kyoto, in many ways, feels like two cities. In Shijo-dori and Gion, a riverbank full of autumn trees and bicycles feels separated, in so many ways, from the gleaming towers of skyscrapers, beautiful lines of steel-coated architecture at Kyoto Station and the polished, brightly lit aisles of ISETAN from the modern skyscrapers.

The small overlaps you may see are in the lanterns of the pedestrian awnings or in the beautiful calligraphy decorating the walls of a shop inside the large shopping centres.

THE FOXES IN THE AFTERNOON

I've wanted to visit Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社) ever since being blown away by the beauty of that one scene from the Memoirs of a Geisha movie where Chiyo's running through the red gates (aesthetically beautiful movie, if a little questionable with its casting etc. ...but I digress).

As with a lot of other temples and shrines in Kyoto, the quiet escape of forests and the scattered sunlight filtering between the trees made it a wonderful escape from dense, bustling city life.

The shrine was much quieter than, say, Kiyomizu or Kinkakuji but there were still a decent number of visitors.