I did something not many people in the US do often. I took the train. In this case I took the train from Bellingham, WA down to Seattle, WA. Actually I’ve done this before and it works out pretty good. The couple of times I have ridden it, it has been on time. The trip time is just over 2 hours one way.
The inside of the train itself (I rode in “business class”) is fairly nice.
And the views in the morning as you wind along the coast can be really beautiful. It would be nice if Amtrak cleans the windows a little more often, but you get the idea…
You arrive at King Street Station in Seattle, which is just a 5 min. taxi ride from the real downtown area. It’s not quite as busy or as big as Tokyo station. No chance of getting lost.
I met a friend who lives in west Seattle. The weather was spectacular so we took a walk along the water near his house.
After that we had brunch in a nice restaurant with a view across the water to Seattle.
To be honest, I am getting to really like Seattle. I suppose part of it is also just a reaction to the fact I am coming from Shanghai. Two great cities, but 180 degrees different in terms of environment. I think I prefer Seattle.
I flew from Shanghai to Vancouver via Tokyo (Narita) for a week long holiday at my parent’s home. On the flight into Tokyo from Shanghai I got a good view of Mt. Fuji.
This was my ride from Tokyo to Vancouver.
The flight to Vancouver was uneventful. We arrived a little ahead of schedule due to favorable winds.
The weather in Vancouver was certainly different than it was in Shanghai. Shanghai was going to be sunny and hot on Thursday. Vancouver was rainy and cold.
I flew into Vancouver because my parents live just over the border. Vancouver is a lot more convenient to use for us than going all the way down to Seattle.
I am looking forward to being away from China for a while and breathing some fresh air. The environment here is certainly a lot more relaxing than being back in Shanghai.
Whenever I visit Tokyo I always am sure to have time to eat sushi. Sushi outside of Japan is never quite as good. This is the place I have been going to recently in Nihonbashi. It is called Funazushi and is a small place with a counter and a couple of tables. No menu, no prices…just leave it up to the sushi chef.
After eating sushi the first night, the next I bought a lot of stuff in the food halls of the Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi department store including this bento box. I took it back to my hotel room and had a small table prepared so I could enjoy it just like a regular meal.
You can really get some gourmet stuff in the supermarkets located in the basement of the big department stores here. Besides this box I had cheesecake, salad, chicken, fruits and a katsu (pork) sandwich. It was all very delicious. You can find some more pictures if you dig through my Flickr page.
Since my last post about using Flickr, I have been spending more time searching for and uploading pictures than writing this blog. Now that I have most of my digital pics posted I want to look for a scanner so I can also digitize and upload all of my old “conventional” pictures. I know I can buy a decent flat-bed scanner for not so much money, but I would really like to find something that is faster for scanning large volumes.
I will be in Japan for the next couple of days and will take time to check out the electronic shops there for something good. I always enjoy visiting the big electronic stores in Japan. They are huge and have every conceivable piece of consumer electronic hardware and software you can think of.
I have been using Flickr for photo sharing for quite a while now. I like it a lot because it originally started as a place for people to share photos. So unlike something like Snapfish, which is really designed for them to sell their photo printing services, Flickr was built primarily for people to be able to store and share their photos. Being able to print is something that just became possible recently. You may have noticed that a lot of the photos you see on this blog are actually hosted on my Flickr site. It is easy to use, easy to keep everything organized, and easy to share with everyone.
So I have been busy uploading a lot of my old pictures to Flickr recently. Only about 350 so far but still a pretty good collection of memories I think. No need to register to just browse my public pictures (or other people’s public pics) but if you want to see my private pics then you need to register (but this doesn’t cost anything and if you already have a Yahoo account you should be able to access Flickr automatically (Flickr is now owned by Yahoo)). If you get a Flickr/Yahoo account and are family then let me know and I will add you to my list so that you can view all my photos, not just the public ones.
In any case, I think Flickr is a great product to use for web based photo storage and sharing. Check it out if you haven’t already.