Cold winter morning

Still some beautiful orange leaves.

Christmas party

Loud music but great sweets

Sunday morning

Morning light

A little bit of fall

Autumn is about half gone, but there are still some leaves left. I love how the red one jump out.

Tokyo stories (My 500th post!)

If Manhattan and Las Vegas had a love child, it would be Tokyo.  If they were dropping acid at the time, it would be the Akihabara district.  Amazing toy stores!  Electronics everywhere!  Bright lights!  Sounds!  Sensory overload!!!

Halloween was epic.  I guess it's only in the past few years that people have taken to costumes, and this year it was insane; even our local source was not expecting this insanity.  Shibuya was packed with people in costume.  It was hard to get good pictures with a phone camera - especially since I was desperately trying to keep an eye on my local friends so I wouldn't get lost on my way back to the train station!

Shinigawa, where the office is, is a bit more mellow.  In fact, it's kind of nowhere.  But I had a great view. Sunrise from my hotel room:

Night time:

A few panoramas around different parts of Tokyo:

The countryside outside of Tokyo is a cross between Totoro and Godzilla.  Those giant electrical lines that Godzilla is always going through?  I thought those were there for dramatic effect, but no, the country really does have giant power lines everywhere!

I took a day trip to Kamakura, where there's an ancient temple, great hiking, and of course a McDonald's and shopping:

Food was everything from traditional Japanese to fantastic pizza, really terrible hot dogs, and everything in between, often with a dozen friends.  Good times.  And don't forget - All your base are belong to us!

Makes Times Square look boring

Shibuya crossing.

View from yesterday's hike

Too bad it was overcast, but awesome anyway. 

Kamakura

Tsurugaoka Hachimngu shrine Followed by hiking - steep!

Sensory overload

But awesome toy stores.

Tokyo nights

Damn I am tired but I have a great view. 

Mountain biking again

Yesterday was a road bike out to Stanford; today was mountain biking up to Water Dog Lake Park again.  Beautiful scenery and a big difference in temperature in the sun vs. shade.

Panorama of one of the hills:

The trail I was riding:

I love how the wood is bright red and orange in the areas where the branches have been cut away:

Half hour late

Dentist was 1/2-hour late, but of course I had my sketchbook.  It's amazing what a difference it makes to sketch a portrait on solid ground instead of a moving train!

It rained in California

That's right. It rained. Clearing up now. 

A ride up a hill

Went for a ride up a hill today, at Water Dog Lake Park. The colors are beautiful: silver, green, orange...

Full sketchbook from Vancouver

Now available on Issu: http://issuu.com/margplum/docs/vancouver2013sketchbook

Some sketches from Vancouver

Here's a few pages from my sketchbook:

The flight over:

Queen Elizabeth garden:

The aquarium:

More to come!

San Carlos sunset

Home

Pretty flight. More later. 

O-Canada

So long Vancouver, it's been fun. I'll see you again sometime. 

Vancouver from above

From the reception on the 34th floor. 

Half-painted aquarium

Pouring this morning so off to the aquarium today. When I got there it wasn't bad but super-crowded in short order. The aquarium itself has a good assortment of animals but fails on benches, restrooms, and rain protection. Their only cafe is outdoors and there's really no covered place to eat, just some umbrellas over a few of the tables.  Odd point if failure for a place in the Pacific Northwest.  They do have some great stingrays, fabulous frogs, quite a few snakes, a number of jellies, an octopus, and a really nice Amazon experience.   By about 2pm I had my fill of the crowds and kids, so it was back on the bus to the city and a cup of hot cocoa in a quiet cafe, followed by a trip to the waterfront when the rain subsided for a few minutes. 

Here's a few pages of the sketchbook from today.