The Chateau Versaille in Paris France had a special exhibit from Sep-Dec 2010 of Japanese sculpture from Takashi Murakami. This video shows highlights from the exhibit.
Some of the art was commissioned specifically for this exhibit. It’s really neat to see this sort of Japanese art in a French palace. A very neat juxtaposition.
A pretty cool way to tour the Garden of Versaille at the Palace of Versaille in France is using the little electric golf carts. For 30 euro for one hour, it’s not cheap, but it really does save your feet because the gardens are massive in size. A neat future of the carts is that they have a GPS Enabled audio guide. When the cart approaches significant areas in the garden an informative summary is provided automatically. Super neat! This video shows the golf carts in action!
The Giant Ferris Wheel in the Palette Town shopping Center in Odaiba, Tokyo Japan was the world’s tallest ferris wheel when it was built in 1999. Standing at 340 feet tall, it was surpassed by the London Eye in 2000. In this video I take a ride on the Ferris Wheel. Check out the video:
This unique thing about this ferris wheel is that it has 4 “clear” gondolas. The entire gondola is made of clear plastic, so passengers can see straight down below the feet. I really cool experience, provided you aren’t afraid of heights. The ride takes 16 minutes, and costs 900 yen.
On my last trip to Japan, I stayed for 4 nights at the Hotel Century Southern Tower in Tokyo.
The hotel is very conveniently located right outside the Southern Terrace exit of the JR Shinjuku train station and is an awesome spot to base on a trip to Tokyo. Trains run from Shinjuku to almost every part of Tokyo. And although the hotel is directly above the train station, it is super quiet. The windows and hotel must have some excellent sound insulation, as I couldn’t hear a thing.
The hotel occupies the upper floors of the Southern Tower building, floors 19-35. Checking in at the hotel lobby on the 20th floor is a pretty odd experience, since I’m used to checking in on the ground floor. The staff are all very attentive, and speak very good English. An interesting tidbit that the staff shared upon check-in is that the hotel does not have room service, so that I should purchase items at the convenience store if I’m hungry.
We had a twin room, that was 23 sq meters, super big for Tokyo standards. There was actually room for us, AND our luggage in the room. Quite refreshing. The beds are comfy and clean. The bathroom was super clean, and big for Tokyo standards.
But the best part of the hotel — the view! Wow! Amazing! You have to see it in person to really appreciate it. There’s something cool about staying in a room so high above the city. Just an awesome place to retreat to every night.
Continuing the Italy videos from 2006, this is the fiinal part, our trip to Rome.
The video starts with a tour of our small, and humble hotel room in the Hotel Gulio Cesare. We then continue with an overview of types of roman restaurants, visit the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, take a trip on a musical subway car complete with graffiti, check out the 1000 year old Pantheon and Collesuem, visit the church of illusions, stick our hands in the mouth of truth, and visit the Vatican.
Continuing the Italy videos from 2006, this is the second part, our trip to Florence.
Highlights of this video include:
Back in 2006, Tanya and I visited Italy, Venice, Florence, and Rome. Here is the first part, the video from Venice. We also visited the islands of Murano, and Burano.
I think this post somehow disappeared when I was upgrading to the latest version of wordpress, so here goes again.
I’ve re-encoded a group of my older videos for web viewing, the first of which is a trip that the wifey (or then pre-wifey) and I took to Japan in 2005. We visited Osaka, Kyoto, Hakone, and Tokyo.
Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium in the Namjatown is a portion of the theme park dedicated to Gyoza (potstickers) from all around Japan. Namjatown is in the Sunshine City shopping center in Tokyo, and is well worth a visit for the gyoza lover! In this video I visit Gyoza Stadium, and sample a few different gyoza stands. Which gyoza is out the best? Watch the video to find out!
15 minute walk from Ikebukuro Station
Hours: Daily 10:00 to 22:00 (entry until 21:00)
Admission: 300 yen (Namjatown)
Located inside the Namjatown in the Ikebukuro Sunshine City complex, the Ikebukuro Gyoza Stadium features various gyoza dishes by famous restaurants from across Japan. The theme is Tokyo of the 1950s.
I spent a day exploring the town of Toulon in Southern France. Here are some pictures from the cable car, and a view from the mountain atop Toulon.
