Heartbreak: Inter 1 FC Barcelona 0

The loss was really hard to bear. I had a good seat and great expectations, but in the end it was dashed hopes and a long, sleepless bus ride back to Osaka.

Frank Rijkyaard made some poor tactical decisions, I think. Oh well. Hats off to Internacional, which scored the winning goal with less than 10 minutes to go, on one of it's few chances on net. Deco and Motta played particularly well. Why Motta was subbed totally mystifies me. He was so solid in the midfield. I bet if he hadn't been subbed Inter wouldn't have scored and Barca would have prevailed.

This was my second time to watch Barca play at the magnificent Yokohama stadium, the first being in July 2005 when they played to an exciting 3-3 draw with Yokohama F. Marinos....

Some shots from the heartbreak:

The Great Buddha (Kotoku-in)

The Great Buddha of Kamakura (Kotoku-in) is, of course, Kamakura's main attraction. It was cast in 1252 and stands more than 13 metres tall. It is the second largest Buddha statue in Japan, the largest being the one in Todaiji temple, Nara. More information on Kotoku-in is here.

Yokohama Chinatown

Yokohama Chinatown, the biggest Chinatown in Japan. Big lights, big butamans, big prices.

Kamakura

With FC Barcelona due to play in the Club World Cup in Yokohama, I managed to get a game ticket for the big event on 17 December. So I spent the day before the game in Kamakura, a seaside resort town 30 minutes south of Yokohama by train.

There's a bit of everything to suit all kinds of visitors: long narrow streets lined with snack food vendors and shops selling crafts, rustic temples with gardens and cemeteries, bamboo groves, hiking trails with hilltop views, and a one-of-a-kind mammoth buddha statue that is the town's main attraction. Wherever I went, I wasn't far from two or three hawks black kites (see edit) circling above, constantly cawing.

Takao-san & Yakuoin Temple

Another trip to Tokyo, and this time the weather co-operated. For the last few weekends I have been looking forward to photographing fall colours, but every time I ventured out there wasn't much to come back home with -- just some shots with a hint of scattered browns and yellows -- not the torrent of blazing red like I keep seeing in all the travel posters in the train stations around Osaka.

Taken last year

Despite the allure of cosmopolitan Tokyo, I kept to my custom of seeking nature on the weekends and asked the smiling clerk at the Haneda airport tourist office for good places for nature hikes around Tokyo. This would actually be a first for me: avoid the Tokyo magnet and head for the hills.

After a few suggestions I decided on Takao-san, a 600-metre high mountain about an hour west of Shibuya on the Keio line. Takao-san is well known for the diversity of plants one can see on its well maintained hiking courses. (There are six courses, each with a different theme). Again, the blazing reds would escape me. Another few weeks, I guess. By then the trees would be bare and under twenty centimetres of snow in my home country but Japan --and it's FOUR seasons-- is different. Wait more I must.

Takao-san chair lift

It was another pleasant hike. Or --to be honest-- it would have been, had it not been for the chair lift. R had on her high heels so a climb was out of the question but I wasn't about to complain about missing a climb -- we both had been up before dawn to get the early flight to Tokyo and would have to be active until late at night with an engagement in Odaiba. I managed to get a few shots during the 12-minute ride halfway up the mountain, but that was a real challenge, with a bag of sweetened roasted chestnuts fighting for my attention the whole way up. Gosh, amaguri is delicious!

Surrounding hills

At the end of the ride, after a few minutes walk, we were rewarded by a spectacular view of the smog that engulfs distant Tokyo. Following the path and mingling with many other day-trippers, we came across Yakuoin Temple, a Shinto-Buddhist site built in 744 by Emperor Shomu. It is noted for its connection with Tengu, a winged, long-nosed deity with special powers who resides in mountains. A number of statues of the mythical being can be seen here, since Takao-san was considered a sacred mountain and thus a centre for mountain worship.

Tengu statue

Yakuoin temple is the main attraction of Takao-san. There is also a monkey zoo, and many interesting trees along the paved paths. Takao-san is also home to a kind of flying squirrel, but I didn't spot any. The views are supposed to be noteworthy, but on this day we could only see smog creeping over the nearby hills. We didn't make it to the mountain peak because we ran out of time. I found this temple somehow different to others I had visited, and I lingered around to take some pictures:






More information on Takao-san can be found here (Japan National Tourist Office).

Arrows in Tokyo

I had a gig in Tokyo this weekend. The first thing I had packed was the camera. I'd be free on the Sunday, so I thought of going to Nikko for another photo project. Nikko is a small town of unusual temples about 2 hours by train north of Tokyo and a popular weekend retreat for Tokyoites.

The weather didn't co-operate so I decided to cancel that. It rained most of the day and at first I was a little annoyed by the bad luck. Then while taking the subway, something caught my eye. It was nothing more simple than an arrow on the floor.

Before long I saw another arrow, and then another, and decided to make a project out of... arrows. Soon all I could see were arrows, everywhere. I rode the subway looking for them, until it was time to take the shinkansen back to Osaka.