Pictures

On festivals

Kaijuu — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 20:19:00 GMT

I finally got a great opportunity for breaking in my new camera; the Streets Festival was held downtown last Friday, so I took off with my cameras in tow.
Cameras? Yes, since I wasn't sure whether I could get close to the stages (not for safety, but due to various people in my way), I decided to take the 24-105 AND the 70-200. But switching lenses is a bit tedious in a festival setting, so I put the 70-200 on the 40D and the 1Ds got the 24-105.

The drawback is that you have 6 kilo's of gear to lug around, but the benefits outweigh that little horde, as you are very flexible in deciding to go wide or zoom. :)
The 40D's crop factor adds to the focal length, essentially turning the 70-200 into a 112-320, while the 1Ds gives you the 24-105 the lens provides. This gives you loads to play around with, and enables you to switch from wide to closeup to wide again in mere seconds, without having to resort to full-range lenses that will not make you happy in nightly conditions.

An example of what I shot:

It's kind of noisy, since I had to resort to a high ISO value, but I like the shot very much.

Now to sort out the rest of them. :)

Cheers, K.

On Tigers vs Giants

Kaijuu — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:51:00 GMT

Last Thursday I slept in and went to a nearby park to have lunch and enjoy the cherry blossoms.
The sakura is really something; it's amazing to seen those trees in full bloom, creating an ocean of pink and white petals.

After arranging some things for our trip to Sendai, we went for an early dinner, and headed for Koshien Stadium for the Hanshin Tigers-game.
That night's game featured Tigers vs Giants again, which the Tigers sadly lost.

Despite that, everyone had a good time, and there were no riots or hooligans in sight.

Some of the pictures I made:

They did make it to the last inning; it's either nine innings (with room for another one in case of a tie) or 90 minutes, whichever comes first. The Tigers were behind with 8 to 4 by the time of the last out for the Tigers, so the umpire called it a night.

One of the people behind us gave me a Hanshin Tigers towel, and another man provided us with balloons.
The idea behind the balloons was to have everyone inflate their balloons at a certain point, in order to let them all fly into the sky at once. A plastic valve made sure the ascent went smooth. It was quite a sight to see.

Cheers, K

On virgin snow

Kaijuu — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 18:00:00 GMT

Looks like winter isn't done just yet; woke up to a fine layer of snow this morning and it was hell-ass cold this week.
I went for some pictures the other day after a particularly heavy snowfall, which got me the following:

I like the first one the best; the bushes at the center of the roundabout are pristine white and untouched.

Cheers, K.

It snows

Kaijuu — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:00:00 GMT

And I have been taking pictures. :)
I had the day off, last Friday, and planned on going out and about on the Veluwe. Unfortunately, the UPS-guy who was scheduled to deliver something to my house turned out to be a no-show; he was supposed to turn up somewhere between 13:00 and 16:00, but when 16:00 came around, still no delivery.
By that time, the sun began to set and I didn't get much done, apart from a few shots.

Saturday was already planned for other stuff, so today, I finally got to go and have a shot at nature in pristine white.

The best shots are taken when the sun sets. While the pictures appear to get a little too dark, you may be able to get what you need using the right equipment and a little tinkering with the colour slides afterwards, as shot of snow tend to turn out blue.
A steady hand also helps, as will shooting in RAW. :)
Shooting RAW may help you get the lighting back which might be a little off in the JPEG-compromise by the camera.

Cheers, K.

J-popcon Saturday

Kaijuu — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:07:00 GMT

Because of our late arrival on Friday, Michel and I decided to not go to Valby until Saturday morning, after doing some touristy bits like visiting the Little Mermaid near Copenhagen's Osterport and getting some typically Danish groceries to take back with us.

Once we got our VIP-badges, Nils of the J-popcon Staff was able to meet with us and have a little chat on the way to the venue where the Cosplay Competition was going to be held.
Cosplay is a major part of the festival, not in the least because of their participation in the preliminaries of Japan's prestigious World Cosplay Summit; basically the world championship of cosplay. The next WCS will be held in Nagoya, August 2010.

The competition is being held in a separate venue, since Valby's Kulturhus isn't large enough to hold it in, not by a long shot.
We talked to some of the tech crew, and got to see some of the rehearsals, which were quite pleasant to the eye. ;)
As the afternoon progressed, everything came together and once the crowd was let in, the competition started.
I managed to take heaps of pictures, but had to resort to a high ISO-setting, due to the fact that flashing isn't allowed, and the lighting was less than perfect. Thats why you will see some noise here and there.

The jury consisted of four women who all had earned their marks in the cosplay scene. Nadia, a cosplay artist from Italy, 2008 candidate for WCS; Andra Tan, a cosplay artist from Singapore; and two WCS candidates from Germany (their names have slipped my mind, sorry).

Andrea Tan kicked everything off with a song. She's a really good singer.

This Full Metal Alchemist-act was really good:

As were these two ladies. They had their skit pre-recorded, but they had practised so well that it was hard to note the difference

This Wedding Peach-act was very good as well; lovely dresses:

And lovely battle outfits as well:

Metropolis:

Some things I didn't recognise, sorry:

Magic Knights Rayearth: Mokona ate all the chocolate and will be facing the consequences

Revolutionary Girl Utena also packed some heat:

A girl with big cigarettes:

This was an act played fully in Danish. Couldn't understand any of it (neither did the judges, so Morten of J-popcon Staff did live translations), but they were funny as hell, if the laughter and applause is anything to go by.
It got them a prize as well.

This act started late due to technical problems, but they didn't lose their concentration.

This Mononoke-act missed out on the trip to Japan by only a tiny bit. They got Best Cosplay instead.

Ranma 1/2

Quite a few acts.

Halloween version of Kingdom Hearts. They plucked the WCS candidacy away from the Mononoke act by only a tiny bit, according to the judges.

More acts.

This act was quite original; an argument between WWII-versions of Germany, Poland and Italy.

Final two acts:

Now, due to size issues, most of the pictures had to be cropped through HTML, so I invite you to the J-popcon Cosplay gallery for better versions.

Let me tell you; the acts were really amazing. I rarely see such dedicated amateur performers on a cosplay stage. Their English was splendid, their timing as right on the dot and the outfits were stunning.
A joy to watch.

That said, it was a long ride. Due to the large number of contestants, the fact that the jury needed over two hours to reach their verdict and the lengthy award ceremony added to the mix, the whole event lasted well over four hours, which is much too lengthy for my tastes, and I guess I wasn't the only one.
However, I wanted to see Trio de DS10, which would perform after the cosplayshow, so we had to stick around.

Trio de DS10 is a group of Japanese producers which make their music on nothing else but seven Nintendo DS-es with the Korg DS-10 cartridge.
Sadly, the venue was nearly empty when they started to play; I kind of felt sorry for them.
The three of them do, however, make a mean bit of house music, and we eventually had to go and eat something, otherwise we would have stuck around a bit longer.

We ran into our friend Kai back at the Kulturhus, so we invited him to a late dinner (it was close to 22:00 at that moment) and talked a bit.
After we helped him put together a video room for the next morning, we decided to go back to the hotel and get some rest.

Cheers, K.

Pollution in China

Kaijuu — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:22:00 GMT

Industrial welfare comes at a price, as many Chinese people find out.
This series is not for the weak of heart.

Happy Birthday Dana

Kaijuu — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:15:00 GMT

My niece Dana had her first birthday today.
Happy birthday, Dana. Please grow up to be a smart, kind and beautiful woman. :)

Cheers, K.

Food stuffs from Japan

Kaijuu — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:21:00 GMT

Well, by popular demand; here are some pictures of Japanese food, snacks and even a restaurant. :)

First off, some drinks and snacks, available at supermarkets and convenience stores:

From left to right: FibeMini fibre drink; Nat-chan Peach; Fanta Peach; Aquarius Vitamin Guard; Weider In Energy; Clorets Chewing Gum; McVities Vanilla Cream digestive biscuits; KitKat vegetable.
* The fibre drink and biscuits are to get some extra fibre into your diet. With low fibre food like white rice and white bread sandwiches sans crust, fibres aren't abundantly available. One of the primary suppliers of fibre is the cabbage which you seem to get with a variety of dishes, but if you don't like cabbage very much (I do like it, by the way) or don't eat much with fibres, you're screwed, so in order to make up for that, you can drink or eat stuff like this.
* Nat-chan and Fanta Peach are seasonal editions; both very drinkable. Nat-chan is usually only available as orange and apple juice, where Fanta comes in grape and melon, along with the usual flavours we know back home.
* Aquarius Vitamin Guard is just a lemon-flavoured, vitamin enriched version of Aquarius.
*Weider In is a series of jellies containing fibres, vitamins, minerals and, like here, energy boosts. The pack in the picture is said to have an amount of energy equivalent of a rice ball. The lemon-version is tastier than the regular version. ;)
*KitKat Vegetable is again a seasonal flavour of the popular candy bar. The veg-variety is a bit odd, but certainly edible. :)

Another round of drinks:

Mint-chocolate milk; Asahi Dodekamin Drink; Boss Café Au Lait; Super lemon Soda; Oronamin C Drink.
* Mint-chocolate milk is tasty; kind of like liquid After Eight.
* Asahi Dodekamin Drink was odd; not particularly good, but not bad either.
* Boss Café Au Lait is my favourite wake-up drink, along with Oronamin C.
* Super lemon Soda was very lemon-y, but nothing to write home about; I gave it a few sips before passing it on to Martijn.
* Oronamin C Drink is a fizzy vitamin drink; a great pick-you-upper after a long journey or when you're in need of some nourishment.

I didn't take many pictures of lunches and/or dinners this holiday, but a few special things did make it, like these special snacks:

This might look like a set of regular Dutch bitterballen to you (and me), but these are special; these are Made in Japan!™
When we went for dinner at Oude Kaas on August 28, we stayed there for over two hours, talking with its owner and enjoying his homemade food, including these. :)

I had lunch at a Kaiten Zushi-restaurant a few times, and asked whether I could take some pictures of the restaurant, like this:

Its workings are simple; you get some tea from the tap and wait until something of your liking comes along. You take it, eat it and keep the plates stacked.
When you're finished, you call for a waiter, who counts your plates (or checks the colours; some restaurants work with colours, others with a fixed price per plate) and gives you a receipt for the person at the register, where you pay.
For a more special view of a Kaiten Zushi-restaurant, here's a bit of film shot with a camera placed on one of the plates:

I ran into this through Engrish.com's Brog.
It's a fantastic way to sample a variety of different sushi to your liking. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

There is more to come, as I sent some stuff home by mail which is probably being held ransom by Dutch Customs or something.

Cheers, K.

Final day: Hanshin Tigers game

Kaijuu — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:18:00 GMT

A few days of radio silence; it's been a vacation of many new sights and things to do, so these last few days were spent in leisure, with some shopping, shipping and arranging in the mix.
I have some posts ready, I just need to add pictures, which I will take care of once I'm back home.

As said, a vacation once again of many firsts, and tonight was one of the more ultimate firsts; I visited a Hanshin Tigers game!

Here's a small impression of the game:

The gate to the stadium.

Packed bleachers.

My view on the field. The mound is on the far side.

Tiger at bat.

We. Are. Tigers! They used face recognition software to impose tigermasks on people's faces.

Pep rally.

Female mascot Lucky.

The crowd goes ballistic.

Sakurai warming up.

Vendor girl selling Chu-hi, an alcoholic beverage. Kind of like Breezer.

Strike!

Banging the drum is serious business!
Tonight's game was the last one of a series of three against the Yomiuri Giants.

Attending one of those games is really something.
A Tigers' home game like tonight is played in the famous Koshien Stadium, with basically the entire stadium filled with Tigers' fans.
They sing and make as much noise as possible to show their support to their heroes.

I reckon we were two of the very few foreigners attending the game; it's mostly a Japanese-oriented gig.
And they won!

The first game was won, yesterday's game they lost, but tonight started off with a home run and ended in the ninth inning with 1-3 for the Tigers.

Can't think of a better way to put an end to this vacation.

Tomorrow morning we'll be leaving for Kansai International at around 6 AM to get to Tokyo, where our connecting flight will take us back to Schiphol.

It has been great once again.

Cheers, K.

Tokyo

Kaijuu — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:34:00 GMT

Another day in Tokyo.
Sometimes I feel the need to shop around a little for electronic parts and anime related goods, and while DenDen Town usually fills that need, it's also fun to see what Tokyo has to offer. Combined with the fact that Martijn's last Akihabara-experience was ten years ago and his need for more artbooks, and Robert had the same urge I was having, so the three of us headed for Tokyo.

We started in Akihabara with an early lunch at Becker's, rummaged a little in Akiba's many elektronics' shops (got myself a new Maglite in the process, since I lost mine somewhere in Tokyo a few days ago) and looked around for some weird gifts for the people back home.

After showing Martijn the largest Yodobashi-subsidiary to date (to our knowledge, that's Yodobashi Akiba), we headed across town for a quick visit to Nakano Broadway.
I managed to get some cd's I wanted (but that Twin Spica-DVD has become a mission impossible) and after a while, we headed back to Akiba for an early dinner.

George and two of our Belgian friends joined us there for okonomiyaki, after which we got an early train back to Osaka.

I also had the opportunity to go out with Niels, Michel and some friends of Niels, but I skipped that, as I was a bit tired and didn't want to be a fifth wheel.

In the next few days I'll be sorting things out regarding my suitcase (got a hand-me-down from Niels which is larger, but also 2,5kg heavier than my old one) and what to send home.

Cheers, K.