Uploads from Jaako, with geodata

Balti jaam

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:36:12 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

Off to Tartu again today. Choo choo!

Macau

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:38:41 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

Seeking a change of pace from busybusybusy Hong Kong, Cathy and I hopped a turbo-jet from Hong Kong to nearby Macau for the day.

Pre-dating Hong Kong by a few hundred years, Macau was colonized by the portuguese in the mid-1500's, but over the course of many centuries of political upheavals: (the collapse of the Qing dynasty to the KMT, the establishment of the PRC and the 1974 carnation revolution in Lisbon, to name a few) Macau has become a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China.

As it turned out, Macau has the possibility to be just as as busy and overcrowded as Hong Kong! Understandeably, though... It's cool! The traditional Portuguese architecture that remains in the old Macau city center is absolutely stunning! At certain times, we could have almost sworn we were wandering the quaint cobblestone streets of Europe. (...packed with Chinese people??)

But Macau's past is only part of it's charm... Macau is now ~~slowly~~ rapidly transforming itself into the "Las Vegas of Asia" - casinos, smut, drug cartels, gangsters and all! Crazy shit!!!

Oh- The cuisine in Macau rocks, too. Portuguese food clashes with Chinese food for some really interesting tastes! And something else "clicked" for me walking past a Portuguese bakery in Macau, too. It instantly dawned on me why some of my favourite Cantonese restaurants in Vancouver served delicious (but seemingly way-out-of-place) Portuguese egg tarts... Macau!

cool!!!

bananorama

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:26:06 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

We discovered a very strange banana tree growing at a fruit stand in the middle of Kowloon, Hong Kong...

hmmmm.

Hong Kong

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:54:38 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

wow-wee!! what a sight to behold.

The Hong Kong Island skyline is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen! Adding to it's beauty is the fact that every night at 8:00 PM these buildings shoot hi-power lasers and strobe lights into the sky for an (admittedly touristy, but effin' spectacular) laser light show.

The tower just to the right of the center, illuminated in white triangles is the iconic Bank of China Tower. It is by far my favourite building in Hong Kong. The tower on the very right is the International Finance Centre II, and is in my opinion, the most architecturally un-impressive building I have ever seen. At least it's big.

Taken on the shores of Tsim Sha Tsui (尖沙嘴) on the tip of the Kowloon penincula, facing south towards Hong Kong Island.

4.0 sec exp. f/5.0 - ISO 100
Canon EFS 10-22mm USM

well hello again, Taiwan!

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:45:11 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack!!!

(photo reposted.)

Rush hour in Tokyo

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:13:00 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

...okay, who farted?

Please do it in the yard.

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:58:45 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

hmm....

hotels for hands

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:11:47 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

Yep, another subway handle photo...
A little tribute to Flickr friends Steve and Mark in Seoul.

Tokyo, Japan.

Tai-O village (大澳)

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:06:44 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

More shots from Tai-O...

schooner

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 02:01:16 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

I don't yet own one of those magic funky-monkey new generation dSLR's that can crank up to ISO 26,000 without breaking a sweat (mmm, 5D mk II)

No sir, I'm still in the real world, where ISO 3200 turns your photo into a pile of sparkles and mush.

At least I still have lightroom.

Guadalajara

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:39:47 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

Sitting under umbrellas in a piazza in Guadalajara. Sipping margaritas, eating guacamole and tortilla soup.

The spanish architecture in Mexico is fascinating!

Christmas colours?

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:15:10 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

So much has happened in the past two weeks, and none of it has been uploaded to flickr!! The internet where we are staying in Mexico is slow and flakey and I all my uploads are timing out, so flickr has been neglected recently...

Cathy and I caught a bus last week up to Guadalajara, Tlaquepaque and Tequila -the birthplace of the mexican fire-water that is the infamous cause of so much international memory-loss. We toured the Jose Cuervo distillery and sampled eeeverything!

We just returned to Puerto Vallarta after an overnight in San Sabastian, where we stayed in a 200 year old private-residence-turned-boutique-hotel with no electricity, roomside fireplaces, candles and oil lamps.

Millions of people this year are waking up to a beautiful, frozen, white Christmas, but we instead have sand in our toes and margaritas in our hands. It makes for a very bizarre (but fun) Christmas...

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

(Feliz Navidad)

All aboard!!

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:31:49 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

Boarding the Super Kamui Limited Express @ Takikawa Station.

I love this train sooo much. It's fast, clean, smooth, comfortable and oh so Japanese.
I'm gonna miss you, little Kamui. I'm gonna miss you.

"まもなく札幌です"

Time remaining in Japan: 4 Days.

Choowoo!

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:54:48 -0800

Jaako posted a photo:

Hakodate trunk line from Sapporo (札幌) to Asahikawa (旭川)

Time remaining in Japan: 6 Days.

Michael Martin

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:55:25 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

The best thing about Michael Martin is that he responds fantastically well to peer pressure.

Not many people would jump on a ¥4,800 Shinkansen down to Tokyo just to meet up with some friends for a few hours before their afternoon flight. Michael Martin would. Michael Martin did!

We spent a few hours wandering Akihabara, taking pictures, mocking people and *trying* to resist buying supercheap electronics.

Try as we might, Michael left with an iPod touch and Cathy and I left with a crapp-o used Sigma 55-200 lens. Damnit!!

Yokohama Landmark Tower

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:00:23 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

Architectually unimpressive, the Landmark Tower is Japan's tallest building, ringing in at a tepid 296m. (around 70 floors)

It is also the home to the world's fastest elevators, with an ear-popping top speed of 45km/h, straight up. (That's Bottom-to-Top in 40 seconds!) To cope with the immense air-pressure generated inside the elevator shaft at top speed, the elevators are egg-shaped for aerodynamics.

~~Wikipedia cites Taipei 101 as having the world's fastest elevator, but this claim is both uncited and unsupported.~~

Edit: (Nov 26, 2008) - Having now ridden the elevators in Taipei 101. I can confirm that yes. Taipei 101 does have the worlds fastest elevators.

Sorry Yokohama, #2 for you.

too much butter chicken!!

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:41:51 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

The brain will do strange things to you, when deprived of it's Indian food for an extended period of time...

Coming from a town of 45,000, Tokyo is a sweet, sweet heaven of ethnic food! We found a cheap Indian food restaurant and happily stuffed our faces with butter chicken, naan, tandoori chicken, a beer and a lassi -eating both too fast, and too much!

Upon leaving the restaurant, we made it about a block up the road before collapsing on a bench, complaining of "too much butter chicken!!"

...mmmm...

五百円バー

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 18:37:33 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

To-Kee-Yo!!

Cathy and I have thoroughly enjoyed our gradual transformation into 田舎者 (country folk) in our little humble town in northern Japan, 滝川市. Life moves at a slower pace in the country: We bump into friends and students each time we go out. We know the shopkeepers and the bar owners... Life is good!

BUT- holy crap do we ever love Tokyo. Every time we've been to Japan's megabeast of a nation's capital, we've had the time of our lives. With over 12 million people in the greater Tokyo area, there's enough to keep you busy, fed & drunk for a lifetime! We spent the last 5 days of our Honshu trip in Tokyo and nearby Yokohama, soakin' in the concrete...

This was our last trip to Tokyo during our stay here in Japan. We phoned up our friends in the area, stayed in our favourite hotels, shopped in our favourite neighbourhoods and bid one last drunken farewell to everybody's favourite super-metropolis.

Taken at a Gohyakuen Bar near Ginza, where everything on the menu is 500円.

Kobe

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:20:06 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

Cathy and I totally fell in love with Kobe... What an amazing city!!

We hung around the Kansai area for 2 days, of which we spent a little over a day in Japan's most famous port-city, Kobe. The weather was fantastic so we spent the day walking around by the harbour before drinking a bunch of Belgian beer and taking a nap.

Does life get any better!?

High five, Kobe... you rock!

yumyums!!

nobody@flickr.com (Jaako) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:52:22 -0700

Jaako posted a photo:

mmmm...appendages.

Cathy munches on deep-fried crab legs In Chinatown, Kobe.