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Label... Holidays Category... Standard Entry Video Information Press Release Event News

• Videobook 2008

  Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 4:19AM / Video

  
  
  

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• Short Film "In The Vault" 2008

  Wednesday, Jul 15, 2009 4:18AM / Video

  Short film shot in the cemetery of Sabadell.

  Director Adrian Becerra.

  2nd year group project at ECIB Barcelona.

  
  
  

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• Holmes Place Summer Advert

  Tuesday, Jul 7, 2009 2:41PM / Video

  
  
  

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• Trip to Japan. Aftermath part 2 - Osaka and Nara

  Monday, Jun 1, 2009 4:45PM / Standard Entry

  We planned a very brief stay in Osaka, just one night, before moving on to Nara, Osaka is a city with a very long history, however there isn’t that much to see there! Just the castle, which is a modern replica, a museum and a few temples, however in hindsight I wished we’d had a bit more time there because the ryokan (Yomatoya Honten) was VERY nice compared to what we had in some other places, and right next to Doutonboristreet - a very lively night spot.

  Not only was the room bigger for the money and better furnished but the welcome we received was special compared to other places. We were escorted to our room by a kimono-clad lady who proceeded to serve us tea and cake before leaving us to settle in. About 15 minutes later the head of housekeeping also dropped by to introduce himself and ask when it would be convenient to lay our futons out for us, leaving us more tea. On top of this we were given a gift of some chopsticks which came in handy during the trip when the people in the convenience stores forgot to give us any…

                 However we weren’t here to stay in hotels but to look at the sights, so we spent a morning looking around Osaka castle, very impressive from the outside but on the inside it’s like any other museum, you have no idea you’re in a castle, not surprising when you realise it’s a concrete replica built in 1960 or thereabouts… More a tourist attraction than anything else.

   

  

   

   

                 On leaving some children who had just done the tour asked to take a picture with us for some reason (we were the only foreigners there maybe...) Here's a picture of them afterwards... I just want to add the caption "FIRE!!!" to it... ;-)

   

  

   

                  After the castle, quickly back to the hotel to pick up the luggage and off to catch the next shinkansen to Nara.

   

                  Nara was a whole different ball game, for a start, walking down the main street to our ryokan we passed SO MANY foreigners and souvenir shops we didn’t feel like we were in Japan any more. Our room was small but nicely appointed and we could see the main 5 layer pagoda from our window (if you stood on tiptoe and squinted). The city itself was very nice though, small with much parkland, lots of deer...

   

  

   

   

                  There are however only a few things to do in Nara, a couple of temples and the museum. One of the temples is the biggest wooden structure in Japan apparently

   

  

   

  and is very impressive with a HUGE Buddha (apparently they can get up to 5 monks in the palm of it when they're cleaning it)

   

  

   

          There's a ton of history to find out about (Nara was the first capital in the 8th century) however the museum is rather special. It’s filled from top to bottom with buddhas and bhodisatvas… Ok for the first 10 or 20 minutes but after you’ve seen your 100th statue and read your 100th piece of card stating the era in which it was carved you begin to go a bit blind. I think we took an hour for the first 100 statues and probable about half an hour for the next 900… Maybe I’m exaggerating a touch but that’s what it felt like!

   

            All in all, both cities were worth seeing but considering what else there is to see in southern Japan then a day in each to get round quickly is short but enough.

  
  

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• Trip to Japan - the aftermath, part 1

  Tuesday, May 12, 2009 7:10PM / Standard Entry / Holidays

  Because so much happened in Japan I’m going to write episodes of places or days and publish them one by one. I have already posted some pictures and the blogs will explain most of them to a further degree.

  So here we go – chapter 1.

   

  MOUNT FUJI AND LAKE KAWAGUCHI

   

  Around the base of Mount Fuji are 5 lakes which act as vacation spots for locals and as a starting point for climbers etc. To get to one of the lakes we took a shinkansen to Otsuki station and from there the Fuji Express leaves every half an hour or so – a very comfortable train painted garishly in a very Japanese style.

   

  

   

  The day was cloudy and threatened to rain at any time but this was the day we had picked beforehand to do this and we didn’t have another day available with our tight schedule. Besides, it’s a bloody big mountain and we’re going to be standing at the base of it right?  It’s not as if we’re not going to see it…

  First stop is Fuji-Yoshida, the traditional pilgrim base. I check the tourist map before leaving the station and we walk out in the direction of the mountain. Bearing in mind that the SUMMIT of the mountain is only about 8 miles away after about 10 minutes of walking and not seeing a mountain I decide to ask a local.

  “Sumimasen, Fuji-san wa doko desu ka?” I felt pretty foolish asking, thinking that the mountain was probably behind a building or something but when the guy looked around and started scratching his head I relaxed a bit. If a local doesn’t know where the mountain’s gone to then what chance did I have of finding it. In the end the guy pointed in a vague direction and reeled off some Japanese, most of which I didn’t understand but sounded like “it’s over there, it’s cloudy so you can’t see it” with maybe a “silly tourist” or two thrown in for good measure.

  We decided to keep walking for a while but soon gave up and returned to the train station thinking that we’d have a better chance of seeing it if we continued to Lake Kawaguchi which is closer. At least there there’s the lake to see as well.

  When we got to the lake it had started raining so visibility was even worse but we persisted – it really is a BLOODY HUGE mountain, how difficult could it be?

  We went around the lake to the side facing the mountain, thinking that at least that way no buildings would be in the way, sat down under the umbrella and ate our sushi boxes.

  Still no sign apart from vague shadows through the clouds.

   

  

   

  In the end we gave up, cold and wet and came back to Tokyo, a little disappointed to not see Fuji-san but glad we’d made the effort and knowing that with any luck we’d see the mountain from the train in a couple of days.

   

  As a post-script to this, we spent a lot of our time looking for a painting to hang in our bedroom, going through a lot of Ukiyo-e and not finding anything until the VERY LAST DAY when we found this…

   

  

   

  Look at all familiar? We bought it at once! (If anyone can translate the writing that would be fab!)

   

  Maybe the mountain was a bit bigger than we though it was… How the HELL could it have been covered COMPLETELY by a few clouds!!?!??

   

  So to finish off, here’s my artistic impression of what we should have seen that day.

   

  

  Beautiful isn’t it?

  By the way, for those people who haven't realised - it's one of the images from the side of the train - I didn't draw it!

   

  
  

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