Meiji Jingu and a few photos of the trek home. We finished up with ramen (again) near to our place but I can’t remember exactly where it was.
Nikon FM2 / Kodak Portra 400
The train to Nikko and some munch near the station.
Nikon F100 / Fuji Industrial 100
The indeterminate puck of fried matter I’m holding in my wizened, withered, weather-beaten mit is actually yuba manju. It’s deep fried, salted tofu skin (yuba) filled with sweet red bean paste (manju). We bought these tasty morsels from Sakaeya (さかえや) a little shop on the corner of the square over the road from the train station where the buses pull in.
I’ve since learnt that this shop is somewhat famous for these snacks and that yuba is actually a local delicacy. We were served by a delightful young lady of no more than seventy years of age who skilfully willed me into buying not one, but several of these modest but immensely flavourful snackettes and I’m so glad she did because we did something downright touristy and didn’t even realise it at the time. We had a jolly nice time as we waited for the bus all thanks to the charm and charisma of an elderly and rather attractive yuba manju lady.
You’ll definitely want to be like us and go there so here’s some info-goodness for you.
http://nikkosakaeya.co.jp/shop/
To get to Nikko from Shinjuku we took the subway from Higashi-Shinjuku to Shinjuku station (¥140) and then from Shinjuku, the Chuo line to Ueno (JR Pass). The “Yamabito” Shinkansen took us to Utsunomiya in about 50 minutes and at Utsunomiya we changed to the local Nikko line (pictured).
金伝丸渋谷本店 Ramen Restaurant – Shibuya
We just stumbled on this ramen restaurant in Shibuya and liked the look of it. It appeared to be patronised by passing travellers and Tokyoites grabbing a bite for lunch and looked plenty busy.
You’re required to place your order at a machine that will vend a ticket that you give to a member of staff. No money, no yummy. Address and some other info-goodies are below if you want to be as cool as us and go there as well.
Nikon FM2 / Kodak Portra 400
Address:
道玄坂2-9-2 渋専連ビル1階
Shibuya, Tokyo 150-0042
We went to Akihabara, the place in Tokyo you go to if you want to buy video games and things like that. They call it “electric Town”.
Nikon F100 / Fuji Superia Venus 800
Nikon FM2 / Lomography F²/400 / 24mm
The day we got lost in Shimokitazawa.
I know everyone loves this neighbourhood and despite how much my contrarian tendencies bubble to the surface whenever I see, hear, go to etc etc anything popular, we did too. The real treat for me was our brief exploration of the suburbs after our brunch in Mixture. We loved the little houses and narrow lanes with no footpaths. It was a beautiful day – full of sunny sunshine with a nip in the air which saves Matty becoming too hot and bothered when he’s working. It was really quite peaceful.
The film is [an entire roll] of Lomography F²/400 which was extremely limited due to it being cut from, and I quote “the last ever Jumbo Roll of original 400 ASA film from some renowned Italian filmmakers.” Lomography then claimed to have let it age for seven years in the Czech Republic which is just stupid. They go on to say that “seven years later, we went back to discover that this fantastic film still produces refined colors with a beautifully unique tone. It’s one-of-a-kind Color Negative with an X-Pro feel.” They also state that this film “gives exciting results also with ISO 200” and recommend storing it in a fridge.
Allow me to translate this marketing waffle for you: It’s Ferrania Solaris 400 that expired 7 years ago. As you’d expect it behaves exactly as such. It needs to be over-exposed but suffers from blown high-lights and doesn’t handle high contrast scenes very well at all as you can see in the shady photos of bicycles. It appears to have lost some latitude. A few of the pitchas are muddy in the shadow areas.
I’ve read a few “reviews” of this film and pretty much all of them have been positive and praised the grain structure. I think grain is a problem as well.
Overall it holds up pretty well though. In future I’ll shoot it one stop over and try to use it for low contrast scenes with lots of sun. I’ve got eight rolls left.
This post was tagged with ‘expired film’.