Kamakura

So this first picture is from a couple of weeks ago.  Lion played against some other team (I forget their name).  A couple of the Tokyo Gaijin came to watch and we took a photo.

A few weekends ago I went to Kamakura for the second or third time.  It's the first time I've been there with the new camera, and I took a boatload of photographs.

The first one is of a lantern.  Again.  They're everywhere so I have pictures of them all over the place.

There was a shrine where you wash money, to bring you more money of course.  All the shrines for money are about getting more - none of them require you to do something with your money, never any investment advice or banking.  Just making more money.  Quite dull really.

I'm pretty sure I took this picture before.  Then again, there were way more kites there this time than before. They were everywhere.  Didn't see any children snatched away though.

I went pretty heavy on the black and white because there's a lot of stonework and you can see more of the details in black and white.  At least, I think you can.

I definitely took pictures of this guy before - the pictures you see all around the web are pretty much the same as this one.  It's really difficult to find a new angle on something that is kept in an enclosed space.

If you search for it, this picture will come up a thousand times.

And this one a million times.

As such, I took this picture JUST to try and get something new.

It's hydrangrea time at the moment.  How do you spell that?  Well, they're everywhere anyway.

This angry guy was at the money washing shrine.  You walk around the corner of the shrine and he's just sitting there in the bushes.

This is the actual area where you wash the money.  It's in a cave with that opening in the back.

What is this flower?

One of the kites from before.

Another shrine, buried somewhere in the mountains around Kamakura.  There are a million shrines and temples around the area - they call it the Kyoto of the East.  Or of Tokyo.  Or of somewhere that isn't Kyoto basically.

Kasai Rinkai Koen

Kasai something park was the destination for a leisurely stroll, taken on Monday during one of my days off.  I needed to get out and about to stretch out after the difficult training on Saturday, because Sunday was an incredibly lazy day.  This week we have another game, but my calves have been killing me for months, so I don't know if I'll be able to play.  The team is also gaining wingers and full-backs at the rate of one a month; we have about seven or eight at the moment.  It's ridiculous.  Anyway, if I keep smashing people around in training I'll keep my position, maybe.

The ferris wheel in the park is pretty big.  Obviously it's not the size of the eye, but it's pretty damned big.  I went on it to try and get some photos of the city, but all the glass was rounded or curved in some way, so the pictures came out terribly.  Also, they don't appear to have cleaned the windows; ever.

Fun fact, that little white thing on top is an aircon unit.  Yes, they have aircon in their ferris wheels!  Then again, six people in the height of Summer would be rather unpleasant without the cool air.  Then again, it would be pretty unpleasant with it - the pods are tiny.  Luckily I headed out there on a Monday, so I had an entire pod to myself, along with about ten others.  There were only three people on it when I got off.

Those three people were well served though - one person manning the controls, two guiding people on and off, one taking photographs and two serving photographs to those who chose to have one taken.  That's what I call service!

The park itself is pretty big, with an ocean front perfect for crabbing (I saw a few kids doing just that).  It was pretty hot though, so I didn't hang around and take pictures out in the open.  I was probably exposed for a little under and hour (the entire trip took three hours or so, meaning I was in shade on and off for about two hours) but I still managed to get burned.  Of course.  Incredible really.

None of these pictures are very good, but this is probably my favourite one.

I also like this one because it feels like a completely different area, or like it was taken at a completely different time.