New Blog Domain

As you may have noticed I haven’t posted to this blog for a while.  I’ve been consolidating my website and blog at my own domain www.branto.net and we are now live.  Please visit me there.

 

Witches Falls and Eagle Heights

Winter in Brisbane isn’t really like winter so it is sometimes nice to wrap up and go up into the hills of the Gold Coast hinterland for the day.  On Sunday we put on the hiking boots and headed for Witches Falls on Tamborine Mountain Road, just after the Eagle Heights turn-off coming from the Brisbane side.  It is June and it’s been dry for quite a while so we didn’t really expect the falls to be dramatic but the fresh air and a bit of exercise climbing down into the gully and back out again was fun.  It is only about 3.5km so nothing serious but varied habitat,  some piccabean palm groves, huge strangler figs and rainforest along the way and plenty of birds.  We saw a superb lyrebird as we were climbing back out, they aren’t rare but we hadn’t spotted one before and they have a really distinctive tail when they display so are easy to identify, a pair of spotted quail-thrush chasing each other around a fallen log and in the leaf litter at the bottom of the gully were also a good spot .  The falls will be worth coming back to see in the wet season and the track is good enough that it should still be fairly easy, huge columns of vertical lava formed thousands of years ago were dry at the moment with only small quantities of water coming over the rock face and the seasonal lagoons along the track were empty.

One of the good things about the hinterland (both Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast) is the fabulous places to eat, whether you want to settle in for the afternoon or sit outside and grab something to warm you up.  In Eagle Heights if you just want a reasonable coffee and one of Brisbane’s best pies (with awards to prove it) you can’t go past the Mt Tamborines Winery and Homestead.  Of course no stop at Tamborine Mountain is complete without a couple of cheeses from Witches Chase cheesemaker and a stop at the fudge shop for a little treat to take home.

 

Japan Album: Philosophers Walk (2 April 2010)

 

Japan Album: Toji temple in Kyoto (1 April, 2010)

It was a wet afternoon but we couldn’t sit around waiting for dinner so headed out to see the Toji temple near the hotel.  The photos were pretty bad, not being used to photographing in rain we didn’t wipe the lense nearly often enough so many were ruined by rain drops and other were shaky from balancing the umbrella over the camera and low light.  Still it was a beautiful place and I’m pleased we decided to slot it into the plan for the day.

 

Japan Album: Ryoan-ji in Kyoto

 

Japan Album: Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto

 

Japan Album: Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara

 

Japan Album: Kofuku-ji in Nara

 

Japan Album: Todai-Ji in Nara

Day four of the trip and 21 pages into the album, I hope this isn’t boring already I really am trying to summarise but I had almost 6500 photos, at least some have to make it into print.  We loved every day and every place we went, it is hard to break it down to a handful of pictures to capture my feelings and experience of these amazing places.

 

Japan Album: Himeji and the Hotel

After deciding to go with the large square album after all I needed to redo these pages of our third day in Japan at Himeji and around the hotel.

 

Japan Album: Sanjusangendo in Kyoto

When we arrived in Kyoto off the bullet train we could check in and leave our bags but couldn’t get our room for a couple of hours so we took a walking map from the bell-hop and went for a walk to Sanjusan-gendo.  This was our first Buddhist temple visit in Japan.   Sanjusan is Japanese for thirty-three and refers to the 33 spaces between the buildings pillars, the temple dates from 1164 and we were told at 390 feet is the longest wooden building in the world, if it is not I am sure it is the longest built without nails!

Outside is a fabulous japanese garden with a large pond, blossom trees and artful shaped and maintained trees, there is also the grand gate and long red corridor built more recently.  Inside is breath-taking, there is a huge statue of Avalokitesvara (Bodhisattva of Compassion) known in Japan as Kannon and usually depicted in a female form as Goddess of Mercy, it was carved in 1254 by Tankei at the age of 84, his precision and perspective was obviously still impeccable.  But it is the combined display that blows you away, there are 1000 people sized statues of Kannon in uniform rows on either side and in the front corridor 28 spirits subordinated to Kannon.

As we were putting on our shoes to leave we noticed thousands of petals floating around outside so hurried to get out and stand amongst it – turned out it wasn’t cherry blossom but my first snow!  A bit chilly for the walk back to the hotel but very special.

 

Japan Album: Ueno, Tokyo

Ueno is in Northern Tokyo, like everywhere in Tokyo it was easy to find by subway.  We visited Ueno Park, Ameyoko markets, Toshu-gu Shrine, Saigo Takamori’s statue, the Tomb of the Shogi Tai and the Tokyo National Museum.  We could easily have spent a lot more time in this area if we’d had it to spare.  This is where we first had okonomiyaki sitting down by the Shinobazu pond, it is a pancake loaded with vegetables and topped with a yummy sauce and mayonnaise, it’s now one of my favourite quick dinners having found that the ‘special sauces’ are available in our specialty Asian food stores in Brisbane.

 

Japan Album: Harajuku

Harajuku on a Sunday at the end of March is an interesting place, intense crowds, a peaceful shrine, cherry blossom and mass sakura parties with a mostly younger and heavier drinking sect than the rest of Tokyo.  It is packed with people many with their own unique fashion sense plus the now infamous goths and lolittas.  I loved the vibe and everyone doing their own thing, from Elvis impersonating rock and roll dancers to rabbits out for a walk in their Sunday best, it was all happening here.  And in case you are ever tempted, Takoyaki (aka Octopus Balls) are really good, so was the sushi train on Omoto Sando.

 

Japan Album: Getting there

 

Japan Album: Meiji Shrine 28 March 2010

We’ll I’ve reverted to 12 x 12, rectangle pages are just too hard to get everything I want on the page.  Our first full day in Japan we were in Tokyo and took the subway out to Omote Sando and walked down to Harajuku.  This Shinto shrine is left of Harajuku park, the entrance is behind the JR station.

 

Japan Album: Kyoto 29 March 2010

We didn’t get any particularly good photo’s around the Kyoto hotel, they were all a bit grainy but the hotel and train station area had such interesting structure some pictures had to make it into the album, also considering this is the hub of Kyoto’s central train, subway and bus stations, 3 large shopping centres and a hotel it was rarely as packed as I expected which stands out even more to me now looking at these pictures.

My ‘snow flurry’ photos were a bit of a disaster too – if I practice my photography maybe it will be an excuse to go back

 

Japan Album: Himeji 30 March, 2010

Well I finally got started on the daunting task of sorting the 1000′s of photos we took in Japan, despite the best of intentions I didn’t blog while I was away, we were just never in the room except to download camera cards or sleep.  I’m still tossing around the format of the album I want but I’m tending towards the A4 (or 11*8 depending on who prints it) and after sourcing loads of fabulous Asian inspired scrapbook kits I really like the photos in a simple graphic layout.  I’ve got it black and white at the moment but will have a play around with some natural colours and textures for highlight like calico or linen.

 

5 sleeps to go …

My poor neglected blog, just testing it is all functional for updates when we head off to Japan … only 5 more sleeps to go!!!

 

Head in the sand customer service … thanks HP

My HP DV6000 laptop is driving me nuts, it is now a small desktop given that it refuses to charge…

- The power cord and charger are good, they keep it running all the time they are plugged in

- Thought it was the battery, bought a new one but the problem remains

- Search Google, OK looks like everyone that ever bought the machine has the same issue

- Various acts of witch craft and wizardly, removing the battery, reloading, plugging, unplugging, turning off and on – quickly or slowly – an occassional person gets it to go for a while then back to the problem.

- If you have AMD there is a bio’s upgrade that is said to fix it, no such luck with Intel

So you’d think when 1000′s of people log the problem on HP sites and all over the internet of the exact same problem with the exact same machine someone would have an answer, or at least HP would be able to tell you they are looking into it …. nope.

Guess what my next laptop won’t be!  Love the clear graphics screen but hate the company and (lack of) customer support.

 

Baby white faced herons

…. and this one by the other half in the work carpark.