I’m Impressed

Today marks the half way stage of my holiday in Japan. This morning I caught the Nozumi Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto Station to Tokyo. A distance of 286 miles from station to station in two hours and twenty minutes, for £32.86. Immaculate trains, fully staffed, and providing a snack service; with conductors who bow to each carriage as they leave it, the train feels more like a journey on a full price airline that a railway trip.

Everything is precisely measured and just happens.  Impressive.

Yesterday evening, I may have had too many coffees, as I was “eyes out on stalks” awake, playing chess, Words With Friends and checking Twitter as late as 04:45 this morning. Not clever at all. I’m going to catch up this evening. It’s 19:35 locally and I’ll read a few pages of my Lost Japan book before I nod off. There are a few Shinkansen-related photos in the Flickr album from this morning:

Flickr Week 2

Christmas Market, Dublin and Winter Nights

I haven’t posted since November 4th, so here goes with an eclectic mix of images taken since then. Mrs P and I were in Dublin in early November, and there are also some shots from Belfast’s Christmas Market as well as a few from just wandering about town. Over November, I was adding some mono images to the Flickr MoNovember group, hence the higher than usual number of monotone shots. There are eleven images in total, so scroll right to the bottom!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Metal Insects

I went to see Only God Forgives at the Queen’s Film Theatre this evening. It’s pretty awful and a waste of ninety minutes and £4. Pretentious arty rubbish, just like Gosling and Winding Refn’s previous collaboration, Drive. Anyway, there is no better way for me to relax after a long-ass day and a crap film, than to wander around taking some long exposure shots of large industrial metal objects like these. My favourite shot of the evening is here: Sleeping Giants. It’s in landscape and didn’t suit the blog post layout. Clicking on it will take you to Flickr.

Metal Insects

 

Dark Giant

 

Rust In Peace

 

Off tomorrow! Yayy!

The Twenty Five Minute Photowalk

Despite being on holiday, I had quite a bit of running around to do today. The little jobs and commitments were piling up, so I set myself a task of getting a few decent shots inside a twenty-five minute period of time. I took 52 shots in that time, with a number of multiples and variants of the same image, however I’m quite pleased with these three shots.

The first was taken at 17:26 on Bangor’s Eisenhower Pier. These folk only noticed me after my third click!

Ahoy!

 

I was trying to get a decent angle on my third subject (see below) on top of the pier wall when Liberty, left, called me over and asked me to take her and Zoe’s picture. They want it for their Facebook page, apparently.

Smilers

 

This final image was shot at 17:51 – exactly twenty-five minutes later – rather fortunate actually!

The Good Ship Oyster, or Four Go Fishing…

 

 

 

 

 

Ninja Pics and Tired Cabbies

Just three shots today and all within two hundred yards of each other. That’s 200m in new money, btw. This flashly-dressed chap was impressing some young girl with his patter in Caffe Nero opposite the City Hall, oblivious to me and the Live View on my 60D. I quite liked the light in this one.

All The Patter

 

A cabbie grabbing a nap in situ. You can probably tell how warm and sticky it was today from this shot.

Hazy Dreams

 

“Really, Savita, these crazy Westerners, running about in the sun. Have they no sense?”

Enjoying The Shade

 

That’s all folks!

Give Me The Night

Give Me The Night is an old George Benson tune from when Mrs P and I were courting. It’s the best title I could come up with for this evening’s post. It works in a way though, as I think I prefer night shots to those taken during the day.

These shots were taken fairly close together, geographically, however, the HMS Caroline image was taken some hours earlier than the others. Last night, I found myself  with a free hour so I decided to see if I could get a decent shot of the Nomadic. I’m reasonably happy with what I managed. Caroline first though; she’s a WWI vintage British warship, which fought at the Battle of Jutland but since 1928, has been moored in Belfast as a static training ship for local naval cadets. It’s very difficult to get a decent shot of her as she’s surrounded by chain link fences. I was lucky with this one.

HMS Caroline

 

Closer to the centre of town, right beside the new Titanic centre, is where the SS Nomadic is sitting in an old dry dock. It’s now open to the public, having been refurbished to “it’s former glory” as a tender for the Titanic. She spent many years in a pitiful state as a floating restaurant on the Seine in the centre of Paris before being rescued prior to the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. More info here: Nomadic

Here are a few shots followed by one of the new Titanic centre.

 

 

I really like this monotone shot above, but my absolute favourite of the evening is reached by the link below. It’s a landscape shot and is better seen on Flickr: Nomadic Retro Click through!

A Way Of Life

I noticed on Facebook yesterday that someone I know, had commented on a post about a scooter rally (the Moving Targets Scooter Club) taking place in Bangor today to help raise money for Action Cancer. That’s all I needed to know, so I had my camera ready to go and once Mrs P and I had breakfast, off I went down to the seafront to snap some gorgeous scooters. I’ve no idea why they appeal to me so much, but I think that they make great subjects, especially the older models from the ’60s and ’70s.

Any time I’ve had a chance to shoot the scooters, I’ve always had pleasant experiences and chats with the scooterists themselves. It seems that the Mod/Scooter lifestyle attracts a particular nice bunch of people with a sensible outlook on life. Here are a few from today:

Golden Wonder

 

Original

 

Time Travel

 

A Way Of Life

 

Vespa

 

It was great to see that some of the scooterists’ children were literally along for the ride. One little girl of about eight years old in leathers was tagging along behind her dad, and a boy of around 14 was a pillion passenger on another scooter. I hope their day in aid of Action Cancer went well. They certainly got fantastic weather!

Silent But Deadly – A Bangor Visitor

I was on my way home from Outreach last night/this morning when I remembered that HMS Bangor, a Royal Navy minesweeper (I think) was docked in Bangor as part of a maritime festival and as it had stopped drizzling, I decided to see if I could get a decent shot or two without getting myself thrown in the slammer for breaching the Official Secrets Act or aiding and abetting Al Quaida! Check the link at the bottom of the page for a picture of three nervous sailors looking at me while I was setting up my tripod on the pier.

Silent But Deadly – Well, it was pretty quiet at that time of night.

M109

HMS Bangor

Checking me out!

It’s The Weekend!

…if you work in retail! I’m starting to really look forward to my summer holidays in July. I’m off tomorrow and I plan to take Sophie and her cousin, Fiona, to see Despicable Me 2, but I’m going to have a decent lie in tomorrow morning first.

Just a few shots from the last couple of days.

Sailing

 

Home For Supper

 

Wee Smiler

 

 

Therapy

Once we had our breakfast out and had been to see Mrs P’s occupational therapist this morning, we decided to call with grandson Kieran for a different kind of therapy. Cuddles from Kieran make Mrs P go all gooey as you can see, and cheer her up, no end. The little guy then came home with us and his dad to spend the day with Mrs P while I took off for a few hours to do a few jobs in Belfast and meet with my little brother for lunch. The first picture was taken at Kieran’s house (on my phone using the Afterlight app) and the rest in Bangor, or in Belfast later in the day. Scroll down to see, among others, ASBO Benny on his bike, a classier than usual Belfast busker and symmetrical steps!