Realization

Oh the sun is so bright,
there the breeze softly blows,
leaves sway, softly bathing in it's glow,

Oh the moon so gently shines,
Stars twinking, murmurs from the rills
gliding in the bed, reflections in pale

Why did I just know?
as realization was bestowed,
that the leaves were crisp and dry,
the river bed barren as you knew?

28 Nov 2004

Stockholm Sunrise view 

Sunrise at Stockholm

A good example of my liking for chairs, combined with the beauty of sunrise. On an interesting note, I woke, if I remember correctly, 3am to catch a series of very few night buses and a 1/2 hour walk taking totally approximately 2 hrs, in the bitter cold weather of Swedish night, on my own to get the view of this picture. I'm not sure I remember what the reason was for me wanting to see the sunrise from that spot on that day (maybe it's just that I haven't seen it before, and I just wanted to see it). My roomate at the time thought I was rather nuts. I made this trip 3-4 times at least from what I remember trying to get a good picture with my rather crappy camera. Yeap, maybe I am a little nuts sometimes.

A fascination with empty chairs

I must admid that dispite my interists in visual art, I do not posses the knowledge or insite to appreciate many of what are considered, by others, world's greatest paintings. My liking of certain paintings comes from my own personal unconscious feelings towards it, and it's sort of difficult to explain it. In other words, when I say I like it, that's just exactly what I mean, I just like it, I can't really explain why either. Maybe that's why art is such an emotionaly felt thing, as opposed to science which is based on reason.

Some years ago, though I can't really remember exactly when, I started a special liking for chairs. Not every chair ofcause, just the scene of some of them really grabs me, and draws me in. From that point on I started taking some, what some people may call, odd pictures with chairs with a nice back drop. Unfortunately, my photography then, and till now, is still far from being able to capture the right essence of a picture. In other words, most of the "chair" pictures I take just comes out looking like odd looking photos, in which the viewer will be rather puzzeled at why in the world I would take such a picture, instead of an inspiringly felt photo. Oh well, I think I'll have to improve my photographic skills to get the composition right.

It's really difficult to explain why I started this special liking for chairs, as I have said above. I mean, I'm also puzzeled at myself. I have asked myself in the past, "Why empty Chairs?", why not tables, or beds, or footpath, or doorways? The closest to a reasonable (though not really) answer I could come up with was that, when I look at certain chairs, especially when it's in the right surroundings, it can bring up a certain inspiring mix of feelings to the scenary. When I look at it sort of brings up questions and emotions of who may have sat there, were they with a loved one, a family, happy, struck with grief? Did they take a rest from their walk, or enjoying the view or both? Just reading, and enjoying the sun? When people sit down, it's like they are taking a break, from the busy life of what they do every day, they could reflect on what and how their life is going before continuing on their journey. Somehow, I feel that the essences of those people still linger on in that chair. The chair that has experianced many seasons of sun and rain, snow, dust, winds, and the people that sat on it, and their emotional state at that time, sadness, grief, joy, relaxed, in love.

Well, I know what I've written may sound sort really weard, but I didn't really expect anybody to understand what I myself find hard to understand in myself.

Maybe, for this reason, when I had a chance to visit the Van Gogh museum last year, one of my favourite picture from the museum was easily "Gaugunin's Chair". Though far lesser known than his "sun flower" or "stary stary night", I felt, at least on the day at the museum, that it was probably the only picture I really could understand and appreciate.

Van Gogh - Gaugunin's Chair 

Chocolate smelling tea??

On our way to Gumma we made a few stop overs. As the place where were going to stay is up in the mountains and in a province quite a few hours aways, it did take us a good 6 hours of traveling including a lunch stop over. On one of the stop overs I decided to quinch my thurst with a Japanese favourate drink, tea. Still having weak kanji skills, I was not able to read exaclty what I was buying into, and merely recognized the kanji character for tea.

Right away after opening the bottle, I knew there was something strange about this tea. It had a particular smell I couldn't put my finger on at first. I took a few golps and thought, what's this weard smell from this tea. Then I realized,.... it was the smell of chocolate milk. Yep, I couldn't believe it at first and asked my friend to smell it too, and I think they agreed that it smelled like chocolate milk. Now this really puzzled me. The tea tastes nothing like chocolate milk, it tastes just like tea, but the smell (at least to me) is like chocolate milk (I can vaguely read the side of the bottle with some mention of "soba" which is japanese noodles, but nothing on milk or chocolate).

Now this really puzzled me. What on earth would someone want to make tea smell like chocolate milk, I stress that the smell only, the taste is still distinctly tea. Wh o would even think of making such a tea drink? Is it for dieting people who want to drink chocolate milk but go for the healthier tea instead? It's really weard, but I couldn't figure out the answer to this strange product. Would they also have strawberry smell, vanilla smell tea too? Would people actally buy this stuff even if they are on diet? Even my Japanese friend seemed to be puzzeled by this tea. Strange indeed...

Gumma and onsen

Staying with the autumn atmosphere, I've posted some pictures of our recent yearly lab seminar trip. This year it's in the province of Gumma famous for it's hot springs, and yes yours truely got a chance to experiance what the craze of outdoor hot springs were all about to the Japanese. Just some pictures here. The road side view was most breath taking, however, as the road was narrow, there was no way to stop to take any good pictures, instead, most of the pictures here I've obtained while on a quick morning walk behind the place where we had our seminar and stayed.

side walk along mountain side 

river and bright colors along the road 

autumn forest 

river view 

leaves lined road view 

jogging trail 

tree tops in the myst 

red leaves 

Driving atmosphere 

Nikko Waterfall 

Autumn leaves 

Temple Atmosphere 

Temple Entrance 

Nikko temple 2 

Nikko temple 1 

Nikko trip

I recently went on a trip to Nikko to see the world heritage temples and famous autumn leaves. Though these photos do not do justice to the atmosphere there, I think you can get the idea. It was particularly crowded on that day, as it was a public holiday. We spent 2 hours on a bus going up to the lake and waterfall on top of a mountain instead of the usual 40 minutes it should have taken due to traffic jams!

The pictures on the way up the mountain was amazing, however, I couldn't take any good pictures as the car was moving, but to describe it you can just imagine what it is like when mountains are covered with green yellow orange and red. The lake and waterfall was nice, but unfortunately we couldn't spend much time there and had to return for our train back to Tokyo. Oh well, I think one day is not enough, for the next trip, we'll have to stay over!