Matsumoto Castle 松本城

Matsumoto Castle

I have always wanted to visit this castle since the day I saw a picture of it in Flickr.com sometime ago in year 2010. I wanted to take pictures of this castle myself. It is so beautiful. The opportunity came when I visited World Heritage Shirakawago and the nearby city Takayama early this year. Matsumoto city is located in between Tokyo and Shirakawago and therefore, I stopped by Matsumoto city on my way back to Tokyo, stayed overnight there just to visit the famous Matsumoto Castle. Matsumoto is about 3 hours and 10 minutes bus ride from Tokyo Shinjuku Bus Terminal. It cost 3,400yen one way. You can also access Matsumoto from Takayama Bus Terminal, which is 3,100yen one way. Click here for the Nohi bus time table from Takayama to Matsumoto.  For more travel information about Matsumoto, click here.

Matsumoto Castle at night

Matsumoto Castle is one of the most beautiful and photogenic castle in Japan. It is also known as the "Crow Castle" for it's black exterior.

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Tulips in Japan

Tulips in Sakura, Japan

To avoid confusion, I have omitted the name of the location where pictures of these wonderful tulips were taken in the title of this article. The title would have been Sakura's Tulips. Yes, you hear me right, Sakura. It is the name of a city in Chiba prefecture, in Japanese it is written as 佐倉市.

A lot of travelers who transit in Narita Airport for more than half a day are eager to know how to spend their time while in Japan. Some would hope to visit Tokyo but it would be an hour away from the airport by train and the city is too big to be explored in half a day. What if I tell you that there is a place where you can enjoy beautiful Tulips and it is located just three train stations away from JR Narita Airport Terminal 2 station?

Shibuya Night

At the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo [HDR Picture]

After the previous posting of Sakura In Tokyo - Yasukuni Shrine, Shinjuku Gyoen & Inokashira Park article, I was busy reading, researching and learning about ways to improve and optimize this blog. If you have not noticed, the layout and sidebar arrangements of this blog have changed quite a bit. The loading time of the blog have improved, and of course, my favorite changes are the introduction of the header picture and Most Viewed This Week section. I hope you like them.

While doing studies about website optimization, I have also been exposed to some articles about internet marketing strategy, which includes the new FREE Newsletter Subscription Services that you see as an addition to my existing Menu Bar above. I have signed-up to an Email Marketing Company - MailChimp, and have learned about ways to manage my subscribers via emails. Those signup forms, confirmation emails and RSS Feed Emails were customized by myself. If you like my photography work here, why not sign up for my Free email subscription services? All you need to do is to enter your email address and verify the confirmation email sent to you. After that, all new articles (including new pictures) from this blog will be sent to your mailbox directly, without needing to even visit this website itself. To subscribe for free, click here.

Furthermore, the Google Adsense Advertisements on this blog have just been optimized to display more relevant ads on my blog and hopefully should get better in the next couple of weeks.

Alright, let's talk a little bit about the picture above. The picture featured in this articles was taken recently in January 2011 at one of the busiest cross junction in Shibuya, Tokyo. As stated on the caption of the picture, it was a High Dynamic Range Picture and was created from three (3) bracketed shots with different exposures. I have taken a lot of shots that day from this cross junction, and probably have spent more than an hour in that area. For this shot, I established my tripod by the side of the road and stood there for more than 30 minutes, waiting for the best moment to photograph (I remember there was a car stopping in front of my camera for almost 20 minutes, just to drop his wife to do some quick shopping and the car was there all time. However, I waited patiently for the car to leave and of course was cursing the driver for blocking my view inside me, hahaha). I hope you enjoyed this picture and since it is the only picture in this article, I hope your eyes will land longer on it, checking out every detail of the picture.

Do leave me any comments about the picture or even about the blog. It will even be better if you have suggestions that I can look into to optimize and improve this blog. I hope you enjoyed your time here.

Have a nice day!!

Sakura in Tokyo - Yasukuni Shrine, Shinjuku Gyoen & Inokashira Park

Sakura Trees around Yasukuni Shrine

Entrance to Yasukuni Shrine

This is my third article about Sakura viewing spots in Tokyo. In this article, I will introduce three more fantastic sakura viewing locations, namely Yasukuni Shrine, Shinjuku Gyoen and Inokashira Park. 

To access my previous articles on Sakura in Tokyo, click the titles below:

1. Sakura in Tokyo - Ueno Park & Koishikawa Korakuen

2. Sakura in Tokyo - Chidorigafuchi & Meguro River

Due to the current radioactive scare caused by the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant, I believe many have cancelled their Sakura viewing trip to Japan this year. I hope that the nuclear crisis can be overcome soon and people can start visiting Japan again next year. While praying for the recovery from the disaster suffered by Japan, these Sakura in Tokyo articles and pictures will serve as an alternative for Hanami (sakura viewing) online. Note that these pictures were taken in Tokyo last year, while actual sakura has only started to bloom at the time this articles is written. They are fore-casted to reach full bloom in about one week from now.

Sakura in Tokyo - Chidorigafuchi & Meguro River

This is my second posting about Sakura in Tokyo. In the previous article, I have introduced Ueno Park and Koishikawa Korakuen. You can access the previous article here.

Due to the recent major earthquake and tsunami that struck North-East Japan on 11 March 2011, this posting has been delayed. I wish all of the affected victims the best of luck in recovering their homes and loved ones.

If you wonder what is the current condition in Japan and is it fine to visit Japan at this moment, you can visit this webpage for a more detailed information about the effect of the disaster on the tourism industry in Japan by clicking here.

Back to the cherry blossom. This article will introduce to you two more beautiful sakura viewing spot in Tokyo, Japan - namely Chidorigafuchi 千鳥ヶ淵 and Meguro River 目黒川.

Chidorigafuchi 千鳥ヶ淵

Meguro River 目黒川

Sakura in Tokyo - Ueno Park & Koishikawa Korakuen

Sakura or Cherry Blossom in Japan

Sakura is the term for Cherry Blossom in Japan. With the Sakura season coming soon by the end of March to early April, I am posting some of my Sakura pictures taken last year and sharing some of the best places to view Sakura in Tokyo, Japan. The 2011 Sakura forecast can be accessed here.

This post recommends two of the best places in Tokyo to view Sakura, namely the famous Ueno Park and Koishikawa Korakuen. More Sakura viewing locations will be made available in my coming postings in March 2011. So, stay tuned and bookmark this website if you are interested to know the best locations in Tokyo area for Sakura viewing. Remember to LIKE our Facebook fan page to get the latest update on my postings right at your fingertips.

Sakura in Ueno Park, Tokyo

Narita Airport

I am not the kind of person who likes to take out my camera and shoot when I am in the airport. I just don't get the mood to photograph in such a place.

Yesterday morning, I was in Narita Airport Japan and while I was waiting to board the flight back to Kuala Lumpur for Lunar New Year celebration with the family, I saw this travellator in the airport that was rather empty and got the feeling that a shot with my ultra wide angle lens 10-22mm would make an interesting picture.

And here's what I got, after converting the 3 bracketed shots into a single HDR picture.

Narita Airport Terminal 2: Gate 91

What do you think? Post your comment below.