We had a long awaited trip planned to Fukuroda Falls. This is one of the recommended spots to visit in Japan. Ibaraki’s famous Fukuroda Falls is located near the northern city of Daigo, roughly two hours drive from the capital of Mito (so it was about 2 hours from my place in Tsukuba). As it has been named as one of the three most beautiful waterfalls in Japan there is never a bad time to come take it in; in fact, the locals claim that you have to see it in all four seasons in order to really grasp its beauty. During the summer it is framed with thick, green foliage; in the winter it partially freezes into a delicate glass sculpture; the spring brings new flowers and increased volume from rains; but the added contrast of the red leaves in autumn against the coursing water definitely increases its popularity by quite a margin.
See some of our photos on this trip. If you are interested in some of the simple mountain climbing courses, please check them out here, I’ve got some photos for all seasons in this PDF too.
Definitely recommend to visit these falls once, and yes it’s definitely a family trip.
This year we’ve resolved ourselves to climb Mt. Tsukuba. No big deal given the fact that we’ve lived near this mountain for past 10 yrs now. This mountain is one of the recommended mountain climbing choices in Japan. You can read more about this awesome mountain on Wikipedia.
The map to climb Mt. Tsukuba is available as a PDF file here. The Miyuki-ga-hara trail is the most arduous while the Mukaeba trail is easier & much more fun together for first timers.
Here are some photo memories from our climb up there – we chose Mukaeba trail to climb up, then used cable car down.
Our second climb was more prepared (we were looking forward to the tough one this time). This time we chose to go up through the Miyuki-ga-hara trail, then chose Mukaeba trail back down. We didn’t manage to take many photos this time, but some of them are here if you’re interested.
Definitely recommend this mountain should you choose to explore more from Japan!
Software is an art. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Project SNOWFLAKE is an experiment to prove this through beautiful, minimalistic user interfaces. By suggesting alternate designs to some of most popular sites, this project wants to raise awareness on quality, beautiful, elegant human user interfaces.
In many ways, this project is a bold attempt to refine our taste in software. Whenever I come across applications that mock a cockpit at best, I wonder if many of us really do appreciate good, quality software – especially the user interfaces? Quality on user interface can instill a sense of pleasantness, and many of us instinctively know that this year 2013 has been marked pronouncedly by responsive user interfaces.
As part of SNOWFLAKE, I target some popular sites, some topics as a part of this independent experiment. Not surprisingly, meeting the basic requirements of any device, any browser support is no longer an issue. The time is perfect for fully responsive, and typographically adaptive user interfaces. Yet surprisingly, it is not a norm yet. It will be evident that fluid, beautiful, elegant user interfaces will prevail over geeky, complicated designs. Snowflake’s showcase demonstrates how elegant a user interface can be while retaining all of it’s usefulness. As is often the case, many beautiful user interfaces do exist. Some notable mentions will continue to get added in showcase, and I am delighted on this personal pursuit on beauty in human user interfaces, both spiritually and intellectually.
Through SNOWFLAKE I strive for beauty conveyed through human software user interfaces, endeavoring to promoting human user interfaces towards a status equal to that of art or music.
Miyagi earthquake will be the worst earthquake in history of Japan. Magnitude 8.8 ! It has been an extremely devastating, painful, worst disaster. I was on the 19F of my Tokyo office when around 3:00 PM the vibrations started. At first this was expected to last 5 seconds, but even after 20-30 secs everybody on the floor started to get anxious. You couldn’t even stand properly on your feet without holding onto something. This was in Tokyo, imagine Miyagi !
Anybody close to the windows pointed out the black smoke coming off towards direction of Odaiba.
People started calling their near ones, but all mobile phones, even landlines were jammed due to instant surge in telephone traffic. I was getting a little nervous too, I couldn’t reach my family in Ibaragi, Tsukuba and my wife, 2 kids weren’t out of danger, because just somewhere I heard Ibaragi was also hit with M5 tremor.
I was lucky that day I came to Tokyo with my bike, thus I managed to squeeze past long lines of cars, trucks, buses, people with a total 3 hour trip back home. Power supply, water, gas was cut-out, and the city was in total darkness by the time I reached home, finding most of the people from our building taking shelter in their cars with necessary supplies of water, blankets, food. It was a pitiful sight to see people gathering their effects and preparing for worst instead.
Fortunately we spend the night inside our house, with lights out having the torch keep us from dashing into something. No water, no gas made things bitter, and cold food was of no interest to bite on. Near-n-dear ones from outside Japan tried reaching us, and got through only at middle of night by 1:00AM when I could talk to my brother and assure him that all was fine.
The power came back around 4:00 AM morning, and it was definitely a relief seeing bright sunlight pour through the windows, giving ray of hope in this terrible situation. Very often I heard ambulances, fire-trucks rushing through the street, and with constant tremors hitting throughout the day, it has been an unhappy time for all people of Japan. I decided to fill gas, and keep my car ready in case.
All shops are closed, the ones which are available are already depleted on basic supplies such as milk, eggs, even bottled water ! A nearby barber shop was in shambles, and I don’t think anybody would want to work in that place again.
While writing this, I already have sensed 2 light tremors during which I briefly stopped writing. It has been on and off throughout today, and I pray, hope that this gets over soon, that people missing get found soon, and Japan gets over this bad memory soon!
-Update 2011/03/13
Today has been a very hectic day. Water supply stopped, and I had to jump instantly to get first a container to fill the water in, which I got after a good search in a nearby supermarket, because all containers were SOLD! Can you believe this? It’s as if this place is at war, people stocking (un)necessary supplies in extra, no drinking water available, one guy bought a whole basket of energy drinks in small cans – You got to salvage, and have what you can!
My next stop was to get usable water for washing ourselves, cleaning. There too was a long queue of people waiting in turn, bringing everything imaginable to garbage cans, to plastic bags to small jugs to get water in. I got my 20L of water, got back home in time just to witness a small mishap occurred at one point. A whole truck supplying water skidded alongside a turn, and turned over – water gone, hopefully nobody was injured I suppose.
It’s a positive thing to see the whole city geared up in helping each other, trying to save themselves through this situation. My next thought was to fill gas in my second car, just in case. This turned out to be a pretty long wait for over an hour just to get my chance to fill.
2 gas stations already have closed, some are working, but tomorrow’s trip seems to be in next city to get supplies, and get reserves as well.
No supplies as well, everybody has stocked all possible things to avoid getting into troubles later. What should we do?
