Archive for March, 2008

Japan Photo of the Week: Cherry Blossoms in Kyoto

Unless you are in the northern half of Japan, you are already enjoying the cherry blossoms. For those of you in the Kansai region (actually anyone in Japan), I encourage you to take a trip to Kyoto during this time.

I am sure you can find nice spots all around Japan, but Kyoto is really a special place. One reason why is that there are just so many options. Of course you can go to all the famous places but try and walk around, “get lost” and see what you can find by yourself. Which is in fact how I found this street in Kyoto (although it appears that it is find of famous itself, just I found it by mistake). If you haven’t already checked out the cherry blossom photos at the gallery, here they are.

This photograph was taken by Evan Pike.

And the NCAA update… UNC won their first 2 NCAA games by 20+ pts, *I think* the only other two times UNC did that was in 1993 and 2005….both years UNC won the championship!

Graveyard Cherry Blossoms

Tokyo’s cherry blossoms are in full bloom, so lets face it: every large park with cherry trees is going to be so packed full of people that it will be near impossible to walk around and enjoy the flowers. There are some locations that may not be so crowded, as this FTV news clip shows:

The report shows a group of foreign students who are having a cherry blossom viewing party in Aoyama Cemetery. Apparently many Japanese people would be creeped-out by the idea of picnicking among the gravestones, but these foreigners don’t seem to have much of a problem with it.

The report may be misleading though, since I did find a British Airways travel guide page that recommends Aoyama Cemetery as a cherry blossom viewing location. I also checked a few big Japanese sakura websites, and one of them does include the cemetery on its list. [So if you go to Aoyama Cemetery this weekend and find it ultra-crowded, don't say we didn't warn you!]

PikaPika Stop-Motion Light Doodle Videos

Here’s a very awesome set of stop-motion animation videos found via w00kie’s ramblings. First off is PikaPika the Movie:

The creators of the animation describe it as the following:

We took a photo of each image using long exposures and put them together to make them look like one animation.

To work on this project,we went out to various places in Japan:parks,under the train track,the Tokyo Bay,school hallways,and so on.

We got all sorts of friends in different fields together to work on this project.
During the process,they got to know each other and discover new things. This is also about “communication”.
People can meet new friends as they create a piece art very easy which brings every one happiness.
We spend a very enjoyable evening at the workshop and the party through this animation.

In other words, a series of long exposure photographs of people waving around lights are combined to create very cool abstract animation, bringing happiness to all.

A clip that gives us a behind the scenes look at how the above clip was made:

An older PikaPika video from 2007:

More PikaPika videos can be found at their official blog!

New Movie: Kung Fu-kun

Chinese child martial artist Zhang Zhuang will be hitting Japanese theaters tomorrow with the release of Kung Fu-kun, a wacky action comedy that teams the kid up with al all-star cast of Japanese celebrities and comedians. Here’s the official film trailer and a plot summary from Eigapedia:

A young shaolin martial arts student defeats a series of foes and is told his final enemy is located in Japan. When he arrives he befriends a middle-aged woman who manages a Chinese restaraunt called Koraku. Together they get mixed up in various kung fu mayhem.

And a video of Zhang Zhuang showing off some cool moves on a morning news program:

If you’re interested in this movie, you might want to check out Mark Schilling’s review of it over at the Japan Times.

[props to Danny Choo for discovering these cool videos!]