Lithiumstate

There’s alot of interesting stuff in the history of my country such as the 80 year war with Spain, mastering water to create new land and use it as a force of industry. These days you can still find alot of history in Zaandam a small city on the border of Amsterdam seperated only by a few bridges. Having “been there done” that extensivly in the past (and whilst showing friends from abroad) i haven’t really went to the old parts of Zaandam like the world famous “Zaanse schans” area to see the 200 year old windmills, which to this date are still producing  products like Mustard or Mayonaise.

Everybody around me, either friends or people whose blog and/or Twitter streams i’m following seems to be putting together a “best or favorite photos of 2009″ post. I have to admit I haven’t tought about doing it before but it’s such a great idea that creates perspective to your photography. Actually it wasn’t more than a week ago that I’ve gone trough all of my 150.000 images (!) to clear them out of duplicates (40.000 !) and sorting them in appropriate folders that I’ve come across the first photo’s I took with my trusty Nikon D50. For most part, the shots were all bland, not cause of the quality, the D50 after all is a DSLR from 2005, but more the choice of how I framed the shot seemed just like *ANY* other “point & shoot” style camera shot that you see everywhere. The thing with DSLR’s is you can create fantastic photo’s but in order to do so you have to go beyond the simple concept of “taking a snap” and try to think more in the sense of “How can I convey the most words and/or emotions with one single shot” each and every time. As such I’m also conforming to the popular saying of ” a photo is more than a 1000 words” – it’s true. Especially since I have dabbled alot into video editing in 2009, a properly shot picture can tell more than a 1 minute video.

My Nikon D50 has served me well, it’s been an excellent teacher being my first DSLR. I couldn’t have wished for a different Nikon model to teach me how to get into DSLR. Reason for this is mostly because the D50 doesn’t come pre-loaded with automatic scenes, live-view, custom (color) profiles and a plethora of other things that simply get in the way of taking a picture; that’s all you want to do in the first place anyway. Learning to do things “the hard” way so to speak, has made me a better photographer than a superior “easy to use” camera would have allowed me to be, and that I can say for sure having experienced working around different photographers during events and concerts; they all seemed to lack what I believe to be common sense ! Oh well i’m not the world’s best photographer either, nor do I pretend to be. With a 4 1/2 year old camera body, 2 prime lenses, one non-pro zoomlens and the SB-900 speed flash I can’t say that I’ve spent as much money as most people that call photography their hobby. I am however upgrading to a new camera. I have my mind set on the Nikon D700; which is a full-frame sensor enabled pro DSLR. It allows me to be more creative, and also to work more effeciently and faster. However, recently Nikon introduced the D300 S , an upgrade to their popular D300 pro camera.
It’s still a DX format sensor (i.e cropped) but it features the ability to record video at HD resolutions and includes the option to attach an external mic for proper audio; having been into video alot – and craving for better quality than my Flip mino HD offered i can certainly say that the choice between the D700 and D300 S is a very hard one to make.

Ultimativly; I think the D700 will suit me better, as aside from my trips to Japan, I don’t think there’s anything in particular I would like to put the effort of producing videos off in Holland.

Without further boring you to death; click on the jump to see some of my favorite/best photos of 2009.

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Today I’ve decided to go to the sea-side city of Yokohama for a day.
It is a 45 minute train ride away from Ueno’s JR station and you don’t have to switch lines to get there so just sit back and read a book. Yokohama is the 2^nd largest city in Japan and due to it’s sea-side location was the spot where Japan primarily traded with foreigners back in the old days. Due to the fact that a lot of foreign ships would dock there Yokohama thus became the spot where new sports quickly developed such as Tennis that was brought over by the British at the end of the 19^th century. To this very day you can see a lot of various styles of housing in some districts in Yokohama. Frence and British mansions; gardens that are a mix of European and Japanese styles. It’s all there. Even one of the biggest Chinatown districts outside of well; China can be found in Yokohama as a lot of Chinese immigrants have decided to stay and make their fortune in Japan.

Leisurely walking around, taking pictures and enjoying the weather; Yokohama is a complete change of pace from Tokyo; it’s still a big city and in the newer areas such as Minato Mirai you can find things like the 72 story tall and impressive looking landmark tower and some amazingly huge apartment complexes. Despite that it just isn’t as busy or crowded as Tokyo is.
In the case of the new Minato Mirai district; which has it’s own subway line (only compromised of 3 stations so far that you can easily walk . I think it’s a future expansion thing :P) you really get the impression they are trying to build more than there is a demand for; but hey again i`m not going to judge on local politics. My stroll took me trough Rinko park, a lovely park next to the water and then walking back trough the Minato mirai district and up to the bayside mall for some incredible seafood restaurants; after I’ve had my fill for lunch I headed off in the direction of China town. I lost count of all the Chinese restaurants they have there, but I did try an old Chinese dish that I never had before; cause it’s just unavailable at my country. The old lady in the store told me that that store had been doing business for the past 80 years and their still going strong.  The dish is made and served in the traditional style. What it is is basically a bowl of flavored rice with optional toppings and seasoning. It is made by cooking rice along with several ingredients for hours on end till the flavor of whatever their cooking it with is deeply seeped into the rice.
Having been cooked so long tough; the rice is really soft, sort of like oatmeal.  If you order any toppings such as shrimp ( I love shrimp)  it’ll just sink to the bottom of your bowl !  How does it taste you ask ? Very good ! I wish I had it back at home it’s quite inexpensive and fills you up real good.

After some souvenir shopping trough the rest of Chinatown it was time to head to Shin Yokohama for the Ramen museum (which is officially called Raumen Museum .. )  as the name implies the museum is all about the history of ramen. It’s not very tourist friendly cause all the historic stuff is depicted in Japanese Kanji. Seeing as I only know one of the three scripts used in Japan to convey written language (Hiragana) I just didn’t even bother. And yes there are three scripts to depict the written language in Japanese ! Hiragana, Katanka and Kanji. But I’m not going to bore you with those details. Google it if your interested; it doesn’t make things easier for a foreigner to learn the language tough that’s one thing I can tell you.

I skipped the historic stuff and went down the lower parts of the museum.
For there you can find a replica of what Tokyo used to look like in the Showa era.
It’s very surreal , with *really* early science fiction movie billboards that are as colorfull and imaginative as those found in the US back in the day to the primitive vending machines they had. The town square located in the center has a guy telling stories with the use of pictures and drums for the dramatic effect; this was done because there were many people that could not read.
Lined up across the storytellers were seats and tables with people happily enjoying a large beer. Interestingly enough my Japanese was provicient enough to follow the story without looking at the pictures which made me feel proud.
After catching several stories it was time to sample some ramen from every corner of Japan.

That’s another thing the Ramen museum is good for in that replica city. Namely there are twelve or so different ramen stores there that each serve a distinct style of ramen that’s made in various regions troughout Japan, much like the Okonomiyaki dish there are several variants depending on the region so this was a good excuse to do a ramen restaurant crawl ! Hooray ! Needless to say I left the restaurant rather stuffed.  Being night, I couldn’t help but take a few night time pictures of Yokohama before taking the train back to Tokyo.