Indeed, the trees here can be ginormous! This is one near the park under which we wait for the bus that takes us to the office. 
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Big tree
Indeed, the trees here can be ginormous! This is one near the park under which we wait for the bus that takes us to the office.
More Christmas
Another X-mas set-up at Iguatemi Shopping Mall. I think this is Santa. It's still a bit bizarre to see this kind of Christmas decoration in Brazil.
Batik
This is a batik I picked up at the open-air market. Did not realize untiler afterwards that the 2 I picked up at different times were both parrot and toucan. At least they were both different! :D
Giovanetti's Campinas
Stun-bunny Ramy and Grant. Grant's keeping an eye on the boy. I think Ramy hasn't gotten over the jetlag yet. This was Wednesday evening.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
View from the Hotel
Another view from the hotel. Many of the apartments here have these outside shutters to keep the sun out during the day. This helps to keep the place cool. And believe me, it can get quite warm during the day. Not everyone here can afford an airconditioner.
Views from the hotel
This is from the 12th floor on the backside of the hotel. As you can see there are many highrises here. I guess with cities with a fairly large population it's more common to see highrises than lowrise buildings.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Christmas in Brazil
We visited the Iguatemi shopping mall on Saturday. It's quite big with 3 levels of shopping! And it seems that they are trying to get people into the holiday shopping spirit by having such a large Christmas display. I still think it's too early for this sort of thing. ;-)
Monday, November 07, 2005
More vehicles on the highway.
Again, zipping along the highway, this was also not an uncommon sight.
On the road to Campinas
Well, after an afternoon at the office, Jose gives us a lift back to the hotel. And this, albeit a little blurry since we were moving at about 100 Km/hr, is a pedestrian on the side of the highway.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Waiting at the entrance gate to Expo
This is the first of 4 days we spent at Expo. This was actually the smallest crowd at opening time (9:30AM). The wait is primarily due to the "security checks" being done prior to entering the Expo Grounds.
More on the so-called security checks later.
More on the so-called security checks later.
Line-up for Global House
This is one of the very visible line-ups for some of the pavilions at Expo. To prevent people from cutting the line, they prevented people from going down certain stairways.
Canada Pavilion
This is the exterior of the Canada Pavilion. It's rather colorful and obvious that this is the Canada Pavilion. Inside the pavilion itself, there is a visual presentation of various aspects of Canada. It was an okay display.
Cherry Blossoms
Finally back from Japan. Unfortunately, I did not get to enter as many entries as I had hoped. Also, since so many photos were taken, it will take some time to organize. Today, I've started to upload a few for now.
At some point I will consolidate ALL the photos somehow. That will be another project.
At some point I will consolidate ALL the photos somehow. That will be another project.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
Saturday at the Expo
Well, we decided to take a chance and go visit the Expo on a Saturday. It turns out that as far as the crowds on the trains were concerned, it didn't seem as bad as it was on Thursday. However, when we got to the Expo site, it looked like there were many more people than on Thursday!!
We want to check out the show that Canada will be putting on Tuesday for their National Day. So we stopped by the pavilion to ask. They confirmed that the big show with Alanis doing a full set will be at around 6PM. There will be no reservations for the Expo Dome so it's first-come First-served. Lovely. I guess this will be a test our patience for waiting in lines. :-p
We made another attempt to see if we can visit Global House. No luck. I just checked now if there were any space available for Global House on Tuesday and it looks like there is. I don't know if I want to make a reservation just yet. Maybe we will try for the last day we visit Expo.
Other than that we got to visit a few more pavilions. Decdied to swing by the gift shop at the beginning for some swag. The crowds are HORRENDOUS towards the end of the day (i.e., lines waiting to get *INTO* the store!). One thing you have to give the Japanese credit here for... the ability to manage such huge crowds. The other thing is just how incredibly patient they are waiting in line! I guess when you live in such crowded environments, you just get used to it.
Oooh!! Got to have my picture taken with Miffy. :-)
We want to check out the show that Canada will be putting on Tuesday for their National Day. So we stopped by the pavilion to ask. They confirmed that the big show with Alanis doing a full set will be at around 6PM. There will be no reservations for the Expo Dome so it's first-come First-served. Lovely. I guess this will be a test our patience for waiting in lines. :-p
We made another attempt to see if we can visit Global House. No luck. I just checked now if there were any space available for Global House on Tuesday and it looks like there is. I don't know if I want to make a reservation just yet. Maybe we will try for the last day we visit Expo.
Other than that we got to visit a few more pavilions. Decdied to swing by the gift shop at the beginning for some swag. The crowds are HORRENDOUS towards the end of the day (i.e., lines waiting to get *INTO* the store!). One thing you have to give the Japanese credit here for... the ability to manage such huge crowds. The other thing is just how incredibly patient they are waiting in line! I guess when you live in such crowded environments, you just get used to it.
Oooh!! Got to have my picture taken with Miffy. :-)
Friday, April 01, 2005
Kyoto
Well, after a slightly bumpy ride out of IAD, we finally made it to Japan. We overnight in Tokyo after a quick dinner of kuri raisu. The next day we took the shinkansen to Kyoto. Since check-in was only at around 4PM, we checked out one of the large temples nearby.
The next day we decided to hit the World Expo in Aichi. After taking two trains and enduring some VERY long line-ups (pictures to come), we managed to finally enter the Expo grounds sometime a little after 10AM. We hung around there until about 5PM and barely made a dent on the grounds (I think we only covered one of the Global Commons), so that wasn't even 1/4 of the place! Good thing we bought enough tickets for 4 days!
Anyway, today we took a break and went over to the Gion. We got tickets for the Miyako Odori spring dance. We also got lucky and encountered a few Maikos in the street. Dave politely asked two to pose for a picture and they obliged. :-) The dance we went to was very nice and entertaining. Unfortunately, the battery for Dave's camera died. We figured that we might try to catch the dance again and take more pictures. The tickets we got were only 1900 yen (second class seats, but not that bad really). Afterwards, we started to walk back. We thought we could try to find a camera store where we can get Dave an extra battery. After wandering around the Teramichi-dori shopping area, we decided to head back. Unfortunately, we headed in the wrong direction! We realized this when we came to a rather large and busy intersection and Dave noticed Nijo Castle! Whoah! We were really of course! So we decided to just take the subway back. :-)
Tonight we do some laundry. Tomorrow, we hope to head back to the Expo site. Just tried to see if their reservation system was up, but it was down. So we can't reserve placed to enter some of the pavilions. I guess we have no choice but to take our chances tomorrow. The weather this weekend is also iffy on Sunday. I think we can still go to the Toji Shrine flea market sunday, but if they're closed, then I am going back to bed! ;-)
Later!
The next day we decided to hit the World Expo in Aichi. After taking two trains and enduring some VERY long line-ups (pictures to come), we managed to finally enter the Expo grounds sometime a little after 10AM. We hung around there until about 5PM and barely made a dent on the grounds (I think we only covered one of the Global Commons), so that wasn't even 1/4 of the place! Good thing we bought enough tickets for 4 days!
Anyway, today we took a break and went over to the Gion. We got tickets for the Miyako Odori spring dance. We also got lucky and encountered a few Maikos in the street. Dave politely asked two to pose for a picture and they obliged. :-) The dance we went to was very nice and entertaining. Unfortunately, the battery for Dave's camera died. We figured that we might try to catch the dance again and take more pictures. The tickets we got were only 1900 yen (second class seats, but not that bad really). Afterwards, we started to walk back. We thought we could try to find a camera store where we can get Dave an extra battery. After wandering around the Teramichi-dori shopping area, we decided to head back. Unfortunately, we headed in the wrong direction! We realized this when we came to a rather large and busy intersection and Dave noticed Nijo Castle! Whoah! We were really of course! So we decided to just take the subway back. :-)
Tonight we do some laundry. Tomorrow, we hope to head back to the Expo site. Just tried to see if their reservation system was up, but it was down. So we can't reserve placed to enter some of the pavilions. I guess we have no choice but to take our chances tomorrow. The weather this weekend is also iffy on Sunday. I think we can still go to the Toji Shrine flea market sunday, but if they're closed, then I am going back to bed! ;-)
Later!
Saturday, March 26, 2005
2 More Days!
Almost there! I think we've got just about everything we need. I dragged the packs out of the closet yesterday and inspected them to make sure we hadn't left anything in there from out last trip festering. That would have been pretty nasty.
The taxes are almost done and ready to be sent off. Any bills to be paid have been scheduled for payment online (gotta love online banking). There's just some last minute cleanup and laundry to do tomorrow.
BTW, a big happy birthday to GW! Wish you could come out for lunch with us today! :-)
The taxes are almost done and ready to be sent off. Any bills to be paid have been scheduled for payment online (gotta love online banking). There's just some last minute cleanup and laundry to do tomorrow.
BTW, a big happy birthday to GW! Wish you could come out for lunch with us today! :-)
Monday, March 14, 2005
Intro
I've decided to start a blog to record some of our trip to Japan this year. I hope to use this blog for any future trips we take. :-)
With so many Internet cafes around the world, I don't think it will be that difficult to somehow maintain a regular journal of events. The o nly downside is that I don't think I will be able to post any photos until afterwards.
We'll be leaving March 28th and returning April 25th. And here's our itinerary:
Kyoto
Kanazawa
Takayama
Magome
Tsumago
Matsumoto
Tokyo
We plan to spend 12 nights in Kyoto and use the city as our jump point to the World Expo in Aichi Prefecture. We could have stayed in Nagoya, but decided that Kyoto was nicer and more convenient to other day trips (i.e., Nara).
With so many Internet cafes around the world, I don't think it will be that difficult to somehow maintain a regular journal of events. The o nly downside is that I don't think I will be able to post any photos until afterwards.
We'll be leaving March 28th and returning April 25th. And here's our itinerary:
Kyoto
Kanazawa
Takayama
Magome
Tsumago
Matsumoto
Tokyo
We plan to spend 12 nights in Kyoto and use the city as our jump point to the World Expo in Aichi Prefecture. We could have stayed in Nagoya, but decided that Kyoto was nicer and more convenient to other day trips (i.e., Nara).
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