jules' pics

Monday, August 16, 2010

How to Punt Cleverly

[People with slow internets may find this difficult to see. I find that once the animated gif has done one run through it speeds up to the intended speed.]

While James can add up adequately, he can actually punt cleverly, although I am not sure if he can do both at the same time! The real reason for adopting this style is, of course, so one can drink Pimms at the same time, but it was only 10am, and we are old and not strong at alcohol...

Tesco Mega Temple, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

After a stopover in London we headed to the land of the Tesco Mega Temple. Wow. Having said that, I have seen better beer selections...

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Butterish?, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

There's a traditional oven in our apartment*! Furthermore, cake ingredients are not only readily available but are cheap at the local Tescos mega temple.

Weeeirdd! These yellow butterish products said only what they are not. For baking, I had to be sure it was margarine, so I avoided this array of dubiousness and eventually found a slab of something called "Stork, Perfect for pastry", which said it was 75% vegetable fat. Is that enough? Brownies look OK, fortunately. But what happened to good old margarine?!

*In Japan our only oven is a combi microwave that we brought over from the UK with us. Mostly only rich people have real ovens in Japan.

James tries to blend in, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

As soon as we arrived James tried to blend in with some local culture. Unfortunately, despite his adopting the right attitude, people kept staring. Then we noticed, that although the streets were an array of diversity amazing to someone from the Kanto plain, inside the pub the dress code was blue jeans or else.

Thanks for complimenting London by thinking it was Paris! The other thing that is amazing to someone from the Kanto plain is the beautiful architecture, but I didn't have time to photograph any properly.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Double glazed reflections, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

James in transit. There's a tandem called Garth in them there boxes and the double-reflection in the double-glazed windows is proof we are far from home.

I tend to recognise Japan-ness in the smallest details of photographs, so this must be a dead giveaway.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

PREMIUM!!!, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

On the road again... but where to?

At time of ticket purchase, Virgin's Premium Economy beat standard Economy prices for the other airlines, so no illegal stress positions for us this time!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Alpine lily (Lilium medeoloides), originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

The high alpine flowers on the rocky ridges tend to be of the blue-dot, white-dot or yellow-dot variety, which makes the orange lillies found in the lower flower meadows all the more striking.

The giant hogweed are pretty good too, but they were not yet out on our latest trip. Click here for a photo of that taken last year.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Motomachi, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

A country bumpkin from north west England, where it is very dark and matt, I considered the images of self that I found reflected on the city of London morally indecent, given their likelihood of encouraging vanity and obsession with appearance. It turns out that London has nothing on Japan where cleanliness is practised with great attention to detail, meaning that every surface that might possibly be reflective, is.

Just last week I read an ebook about photographing reflections, and realised that there was lots of reflective fun to be had, that entirely excluded vanity.

[Motomachi is a posh shopping street in Yokohama. Located in the foreign ghettos, it has quite a lot of western-style shops, although if you are over a size 12 UK woman you would have great trouble finding any clothes big enough]