Exploration

There has been a long radio silence on this blog – Romana and I traveled southeast-asia for one month. Starting from Singapore, we hit the roads and rails through Malaysia and Thailand to Bangkok. In Malaysia, we visited tea-plantations in the Cameron Highlands and trekked in Taman Negara, which claims to be the world’s oldest primary forest (140mio. years). Thailand saw us diving in Koh Tao and on a so called “Liveaboard-Boat”, which took us out from the west-coast near Phuket to Thailand’s most famous dive sites.
But to get a real impression, you need pictures:

Romana in Melakka, the Cameron Highlands and Taman Negara rainforest (all Malaysia):

Nasty creatures in the rainforest:

Sleeping in an enormous cave in the jungle:

Opulent architecture: In Kuala Lumpur (Petronas Towers) and in Bangkok (Grand Palace) :

Diving on the Similans and Koh Tachai:

Various means of transportation (Tuk-Tuk, Local motorcycle, Longboat):

In case of flood…

E:
This week I had the chance to see this facility called “Tokyo Metropolitan Area Outher Underground Discharge Channel”. It’s said to be the world’s largest flood-prevention facility, collecting water from a whole array of rivers and storing it in a huge hall in case of heavy rain. We could have a look at the enormous storing “cathedral” which reminded me of the “Mines of Moria” in “The Lord of the Rings”. The tubes that lead the water into the tank have a diameter of 10m and a single turbine can pump out 200m3 of water per second (!!!)… But as usual, I tell my stories through pictures, so have a look at the shots below…

D:
Diese Woche hatte ich die einzigartige Chance, ein Untergrund-System zur Flutprävention ausserhalb Tokyos zu sehen. Im Prospekt steht, dass der “Tokyo Metropolitan Area Outher Underground Discharge Channel” die weltgrösste Installation dieser Art sei. Das System sammelt Flutwasser von diversen Flüssen in der Bucht von Tokyo und führt es einem gigantischen Wasserspeicher zu, welcher dann das Wasser wiederum kontrolliert in einen noch nicht ausgelasteten Fluss leiten kann. Die Zuflussröhren haben einen Durchmesser von 10m und ein einziges Schaufelrad kann 200m3 Wasser pro Sekunde (!!!) aus dem Wasserspeicher herauspumpen.

The control center. Not much going on when the weather conditions are good:

Entry to the undergorund tanks:

Some shots from the tank:

vj-adi draws a light-grafitti on the ground:

Amazing! – Snow in Tokyo

E:
This morning, I woke up and everything was white. Snow in Tokyo for the first time – what a sight.

D:
Heute Nacht hat es zum ersten Mal richtig geschneit. Das ist natürlich ein grosses Ereignis, und der Tokyoter ist entsprechend darauf vorbereitet. Heute fahren alle Autos und Busse mit Schneeketten in der Stadt herum. Es ist aber gar nicht kalt, der Schnee wird schon morgen wieder weg sein; aber was solls – schliesslich hat man ja die Schneeketten vom Autoverkäufer angedreht gekriegt – da muss man sie dann auch benutzen, wenn sich schon mal die Gelegenheit bietet…

つきじ Tsukiji Wholesale Fishmarket

The tsukiji-fishmarket in the Tokyo Chuo-ward is said to be the world’s largest fishmarket, dealing over 2’200 tons (!!) of fish per day (!!!) in 450 variations.
When you manage be on the ground early, you can witness a large part of the value chain a fish follows after he reaches shore. This is particulary interesting in the case of tuna.
First, the frozen or even totally fresh tuna are sold by the market-owner (who bought the fish from the fishing-crews directly) to wholesalers. This happens in auctions which take place between 5 and 6am. In mere seconds, whole fish sometimes weighting up to 200kg each are sold to a wholesaler. Tuna comes in a variety of qualities, and experts can feel the percentage of fat and the quality of a tuna’s meat by simply rubbing its meat between their fingers. The very top notch qualities reach prices around CHF 50’000.- per tuna!
As a second stage, the wholesalers take the fish to their own booth inside the market and slice it up for further resale. For this tasks, the skilled workers use saws and knifes that easily challenge the length of samurai-swords.
After that, the fish are resold further in smaller chunks to middlesmen and finally to restaurant owners, who serve the tuna as sushi or sashimi. The above mentioned top notch tunas reach prices of CHF 30.- per single piece of sushi in appropriate establishments.

Since pictures tell more than words, I tired to capture the mood of this extraordinary market. But I guess, it can’t be helped, you need to see it yourself…

(left)Testing the quality of frozen tuna and (middle) discussing about a possible investment. Very fresh tuna (right).

Tuna (left) and other fish (right) is getting sold by auctioneers, who use a kind of sing-sang to communicate with the customers. A uneducated spectator is unable to follow what’s going on and who got the fish in the end – everything happens so quick. That is also a reason why tourists are not liked so much. They can distract the buyer who needs to be extremely concentrated, in order to not miss his chance to bid.

A young guy slices up a tuna like a melon.

Gruss von Dudi aus Melbourne!

Cold Dark Nights in the City

E:
Japans winter has turned surprisingly cold here, a constant freezing wind blows all day and night, temperature drops below freezing temperature after dusk. Winter is strange in a vast city like Tokyo. I try to pick up that topic in my photography.

D:
Der Winter hier in Tokyo ist überraschend kalt geworden. Ständig weht ein kalter Wind, die Temperaturen fallen unter den Gefrierpunkt nach Sonnenuntergang. Die kalte Jahreszeit fühlt sich ungewohnt an in einer riesigen Stadt wie Tokyo. Ich versuche, dieses Thema in meinen Fotografie-Ausflügen aufzunehmen…

@ Anthony’s

Last Sunday, I was invited to Anthony and Chika’s “Just-Engaged-Party”.

Some others were there, too

The glorious Bye-bye of Romana

We were rather unsure if 12 people would even fit into our tiny apartment…

After a “toriaizu”-beer (something like a “starting-beer”) and a little souvenir-fotosession (below) in our apartment, we headed for an izakhaya (Japanese bar) where we enjoyed excellent food and service.

We want to say thank you to all our friends that joined the party – you rock!

Click to enlarge image below (maybe loading slowly)

飛騨高山 Hida-Takayama

Before Romana leaves Japan we went to Hida-Takayama for the Weekend. Countryside, Mountains, Snow, Edo-Style Town, Onsen…I think frequent visitors of this page know that these are just the things we love when we need a rest from Tokyo.

Unser Weihnachtsbaum…

…und wir warten auf unsere Gäste! Heute wird gefeiert mit einem feinen Chäs-Fondue