Korea: Gwangjang lights

It's been some time since I dedicated an actual post in and of itself to my time in South Korea, and after unearthing a treasure trove of photos I hadn't even gotten to processing yet, I dove in deep and found lots of material worthy of sharing on this here blog, so if you've been missing the Korea posts you're in luck. I seem to have a propensity towards taking few photos early in my time abroad, whether it was my move to Japan (where I also made a conscious decision to go without a cell phone for the first 6 months, which contributed to that lack of photos) or during the move to Korea... towards the end of my stays, though, the finality of it starts to seep in and I find myself growing more frenetic in my efforts to snap visual reminders of the experience for conservation, like the mad dash to check off the bucket-list when an impending sense of mortality settles in sometime around middle age. Memory is a tricky and fickle thing, so I always find it far preferable to try to capture things in a very literal photographic sense, trying to seal a singular moment in time in pixel form for eternal preservation. 

And I have to admit, there's something surreal about Seoul at night, especially looking back through the haze of nostalgia. Maybe it's all the glittering neon and LED lights fiercely defying the creeping darkness, or the billowing plumes of steam tumbling from the nearest damp place, whether it's a steaming pan of tteokbokkie at a street side food stand or a manhole cover concealing subterranean secrets. I hope these photos can convey a bit of that sense to you, the reader. Whether it's the perplexing button configuration on the elevator I rode, day in, day out, or the color-changing tunnels at Gwangjang market. It's all a bit sci-fi, isn't it? Or maybe that's just me, getting lost in the uncanny valley. Neon, after all, reminds me a bit of home, the bedazzled Las Vegas strip beaming away at night like an angler fish trying to lure in prey. Maybe Seoul has more in common with home than I thought...  

Vegas: Psychedelic night drive

Who's your favorite superhero? I know superheroes might be a sore topic for some, given the events that unfolded in the Infinity War... I mean, I know that I can speak from personal experience to say that I'm still reeling and feeling a bit traumatized by what we all witnessed, and repeated viewings on Blu-ray haven't helped matters much... but Antho and I, we've been watching The Flash on the CW since it first started airing (four years ago!)... it's been our show. We've grown and evolved as a couple over the years while we watched our favorite hero and his rag-tag group of scientists and alternate-Earth friends grapple to confront the meta-human menace and time-travel-tangled mess they've found themselves in every week. Even when I was off in Korea for six months we managed to synch up and watch the new episodes together, video-chatting with our reactions in real time! It's been a lot of fun, and while the show is currently on hiatus (boo, hiss) we're eager for when it returns to the airwaves in October. Sheesh, October still sounds so far away, but really we're almost through August already... all the little kidlings have gone back to school, and the big yellow buses have resumed roaming the neighborhoods. Time has been flying by, not unlike our favorite Scarlet Speedster, and summer is rapidly coming to its conclusion. Here in Vegas, summer doesn't fade away without a fight- she digs her claws in deep and spews her fiery, arid breath through much of October. Usually by time of All Hallow's Eve we've got enough of a nip that those skimpy insert-blank-here costumes are mildly uncomfortable... at least, for me. Some girls can walk the streets in booty shorts when it's -15 degrees fahrenheit out, and my respects to them, but us desert rats tend to have thin blood. 

I mention the Flash, though, because when doing long-exposures and driving things tend to take on an aspect not unlike that our favorite fast guy gets, with any light source creating streaks that resemble lightning. We do a fair bit of cruising around in that big van of ours and decided one night to experiment with long exposures. This is the result of that. Also, bonus cicada, because it's summer here and I love the little singing bugs. 

Vegas: Fremont Street Experience

Fremont street is the original Las Vegas strip, built around the main transportation hub of the early days.  Over the decades since it spawned it's fallen in glamour to the newer casinos of the South Strip. You can still easily take the Deuce down to Fremont Street, but it noticeably diverts away from Las Vegas boulevard for a few blocks in the weird dead-zone between the old and new, where money seems to have skittered away to other locations as the crackheads who amble the streets grow in number. This has had an interesting impact... while I will always readily recommend Fremont Street experience to any tourist who asks me for advice, it's due to the fact that the buskers who proliferate in the streets are a class of their own and the amenities are half the cost of the newer end. Downtown and Fremont feel like an island, separate from "The Strip" that most tourists know, and yet this is the original. It's worth seeing if solely to see where the city came from and how much it has changed over the years. There's always some form of live entertainment, be it an Elvis impersonator or "Safe Sax" guy, spray paint artists or the dancing DJs. Fremont is guaranteed to be a memorable experience!

More photos after the cut!

Vegas: Downtown night shoot

 Downtown Las Vegas and Fremont are symbiotic areas, in ready walking distance from one another but still somewhat disparate entities. The farther you get from the casinos on Fremont street, the thinner the tourist crowds become- sometimes literally given that the Heart Attack Grill on Fremont street actively advertises to the larger crowd with advertisements encouraging you to "gain all the weight you ever wanted" and free food for people over 350 pounds. The Heart Attack grill greets you at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont- meanwhile, a couple streets over in what is dubbed "Fremont East" or Downtown you'll find vegan restaurants, sushi, small hipster bars and juice bars a plenty.  There are still plenty of hotels, motels and hostels on either side of the coin though again, the farther you get from the casinos and telescreen of Fremont Street experience the more different (and run down) it may feel. It's a bit of a patchwork of old and new as Zappos moved into the area and started investing into it there have been pockets of luxury apartments and shiny new murals and shops catering to their tribe. 

While the area was the original Vegas strip it had cascaded into near oblivion with the newer casinos farther south...a lot of money has been poured into rejuvenating it over the past few decades and it's brought a lot more life into it while trying to maintain the charms of it's original state- things like 99 cent shrimp cocktails and cheap surf and turf compete with bikini-clad dancing DJs and a zipline that sends shouting thrill seekers overhead in a parade of butts or bellies.  

There's always something going on downtown, and we live relatively close to the area as a whole so we've enjoyed going out for a stroll or bike ride with our friends or visitors. On this evening our good pall Ceedro joined us in our jaunt, and it was a lot of fun. We even found the Ghostbusters's sweet ride! This post will cover the photos I took downtown while tomorrow's will focus on the actual Fremont Street Experience. Enjoy!

 

Kyoto Day 3- part 4- Fushimi Inari

I'll be honest: when people shout that any destination as a "Must-visit!" or "Must-see!" it seems a little pretentious to me. Travel, in my humble estimation, is the accumulation of your own uniquely crafted experiences and being told what to do tends to motivate my inner rebellious teenager into a conniption. Who are they to tell me what to do?! Don't tell me how to live my life! Every time you travel you're going to carve out your own personal story of the location and the experience, and how dare anyone tell me how to shape my personal adventure! Huff. 

That all being said, I have to admit I'm really quite happy that I made the time to take a trek out to Fushimi Inari. This is one of those spots that earns such prodigious accolades, often ranking pretty high on lists telling you what you absolutely must do while visiting Kyoto.

Well, rest assured that I'm not here to tell you what you must absolutely do. No, I recognize your own independent role as creator of your destiny...However, I would like to suggest that perhaps, if you so happen to find the time, you might like to make your way to Fushimi Inari. 

There are reasons why this location, among a few other top spots, is considered such a veritable symbol of any trip to Kyoto. Among being an absolutely beautiful collection of architecture, offering some unique views of Kyoto from above, it's also one of the singular most photogenic places I have ever set foot. Even with my novice photography skills, it's impossible to leave a trip here without at least a few stunning shots. I look forward to the next time I may set foot here, someday, as I'd like to think my photography will have improved and rendered my results even better than these... however, that time has yet to come, so for now, please enjoy my attempts to capture the serenity and stunning views I encountered during my mostly solitary sojourn up the mountain. Arriving rather late in the day as I did, most shops and little restaurants or snack stalls were closed for the evening, and the trail up the mountain was desolate aside from the abundant cawing of crows.