Ramen-YA!

12-Dec-07

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If you ever visit a Ramen Restaurant in Japan you will see something to the picture above.

There is usually the water pitcher near you so you can access it easily without bothering the staff as they are usually busy cooking the ramen. Beside the water are the chopsticks that you use to eat the ramen with. There is a soup spoon that will come with your ramen so that you can eat the broth with.

Behind it is the menu with the pictures of the soup, this makes selecting your dish easy if you can not read Japanese. The containers next to the chopsticks are the seasons that you can use to add to your Ramen to make it spicier if you wish. Plus the white looking can is filled with garlic paste. I normally add that to the gyoza (Chinese Dumplings) sauce as it gives it that extra kick.

The liquids are from what I remember; the red is the spicy oily sauce, yellowish one is vinegar and the dark colored one is soya sauce. An so that is a typical Ramen-ya or restaurant in Japan. They are so much fun to visit and normally you can get a fairly good meal for not that much money. Below is the ramen I had, it is a spicy ramen and you can tell by just looking at it.

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Colors of Autumn

09-Dec-07

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Trying to find the Fall Leaves of Hokkaido

09-Dec-07

This is a post that should have gone up a while ago, as it deals with my trip to Sonkyo in I think October or early November. But I do not like to post photos until I fix them up and lately my computer had been acting up so I did not have the chance.

The leaves around my town were finally starting to change and after photographing all the beautiful places in my town I decided to explore even further and discover the more famous autumn places of Hokkaido. All the people in my town told me to go to Sonkyo. Sonkyo is an Hot Spring town known for its multi-colored forests in the Fall. So one weekend me and my friend set out and made our way to Sonkyo. From my house Sonkyo is about 2 hours and it is a nice drive through the mountains.

We arrived in the Sonkyo area early and thought we would explore a little before taking the gondola to the top of the hill. In retrospect this was a good idea as we found this waterfall with the most beautiful changing leaves. For a photographer this was like a kid in a candy story who just wants everything. So I started taking pictures of everything and hoping it turned out well later. I was very happy with the results as i had been experimenting with the shutter speed on my camera and the water going by the rock I really like. So we explored the area and took all the photos we wanted and moved on.

After that we headed back to Sonkyo and I was dispointed by it, it was suppose to be this amazing photo place but was nothing more then orange trees. I think for me autumn leaves are the maples trees that turn red in Canada. So this was nothing much and as a result I did not take many photos. Though the ride up and down the hill was fun as the previous week i had done a mountain climb and it was exhausting so it was amusing to me to make it up the mountain so quick and easy.

With the light disappearing we thought it was best to return home before it got too dark and that was my day. I really love Hokkaido as there is just so much nature to explore and photo. It reminds me a lot of the national park in Banff with its endless beauty.

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