Moments from a Catalan summer

It was a three-year wait, and ultimately a short city break. But this summer, my wife and I finally managed to get what we could call our honeymoon. We had a long weekend in Barcelona - her first visit, my second - and it was well worth the wait. 

Day One was a Gaudi day, with visits to Sagrada Familia, Park Güell and La Pedrera. I'd been outside the remarkable building that serves as a cathedral before, but this was my first time inside. It was fascinating to gain an understanding of how much Gaudi was inspired by nature and how that informed his work. This was demonstrated even further with the park, where the architecture was fused with the natural environment rather than just inspired by it. The roof of La Pedrera was unlike anything I'd seen before, and was a most striking example of what can be done with a building when the architect's imagination is the only limit.

Day Two took in the ocean and the hill that looks over the city. We started off with the wonders of La Boqueria, Europe's largest food market, then strolled down La Rambla to the sea, taking in an exhibition on Latin peoples at the Museu Marítim, the sights of the marina, then a cable car ride up to Montjuïc. The whole trip ended up being heavily loaded with with museums and galleries - up on the hill, we took in another two. These were Fundació Joan Miró  (an artist whom I was intrigued to learn had spent some time in Japan and been greatly influenced by his time there) and Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, a seriously impressive building housing 2,000 years of Catalan art from Roman times to 20th Century photography. The day ended with a fountain show set to lights and music, in the grounds of the museum, which amusingly was also flanked by a Spanish bikers convention.

Day Three saw a longstanding ambition of my wife's realised - a visit to the Picasso Museum. With that one under the belt, we took in the neighbouring Chocolate Museum, where I learned of the role that the cocoa bean has had in the Spanish Empire. On the way out, we were rather shocked to be standing around in the street an witness a police altercation. Two cops appeared from nowhere on bikes, one started shouting at a man with no shirt on, then chased after him and knocked him to the floor - with the motorbike he was riding! The man was still on the floor when things began to flare up with other onlookers, and we decided to slink away.

The photo gallery above contains images from some of the highlights of the trip, plus a few other sights not mentioned above. Really a fantastic city, I could easily go back again and again.

Back from Japan

Yokohama scooter boy

My wife and I returned to the UK last Sunday from our trip to Japan - our first time back there in about two and a half years. I was thrilled to be back in the country again and the break from England was much needed. I was also very happy to be in temperatures 15-20 degrees higher than the ones we'd left behind in Britain as it meant getting some semblance of a summer, although she was rather less keen on the heat. The humidity is pretty stifling at the best of times.

The main reason for going back was to finally hold a Japanese leg of our wedding celebrations, with a small gathering in Yokohama for the friends and family members from her side that naturally weren't able to make it over for the English leg back in 2008. An attempt at rebalancing the more Anglo-centric first version, this meant that she covered the organisation of this one and I went along with whatever the plans were. A lot of the time, I was a back-seat passenger staring out at the back streets of Yokohama as we moved from store to store and place to place, stocking up on necessary goodies and making arrangements.

Near Tokaichiba station

Although I took quite a lot of photos, I wasn't that happy with most of them. I guess many of them were a little dashed off or ill thought out, but there were the odd few gems that turned up on the memory card at the end of the trip. I also took plenty of video footage, having invested in a new Flip UltraHD video camera prior to departure. This footage was much more satisfactory, which was an interesting development in documentation of a visit. However, as the next few months are fairly solidly packed with work-related commitments, there's going to have to be a gradual drip-feed out of this year's Japan content rather than a gushing out.

Back streets of Kokubunji

I had a little bit of time to myself too, and took full advantage of an opportunity to both squeeze in a gig with the band - our first in two years - and catch up with a few old friends. It was funny to be back on the trainlines of Tokyo, heading from suburbs to city centre on journeys both intensely familiar and now with the veneer of being slightly alien again. Interestingly, to my eyes Tokyo hadn't changed a great deal since I'd left, which for a place that is seemingly built on constant reinvention suggested that it was finally settling down. Letting Shanghai or Dubai claim global attention for futurism junkies, Tokyo's actually chilling out a little.

Boat fan, Inokashira Park

One friend had decided to move back to Tokyo again having left and returned to the US several years ago. It's funny how the place gets into your veins. Although I was a lot more unhooked from the internet whilst there, I did post the occasional Facebook update (just keeping things within smaller circles). My comments about being back often triggered exclamations of nostalgia or envy from connections that had spent time there themselves. Similar ones to the comments I tend to make when the same people go back themselves. Most of the other folks I caught up with whilst in town (largely all non-Japanese) seemed perfectly content to carry on letting the flow of the city keep moving them along.

Mitaka junction

Because there was a fair amount of time moving around and only being static for brief periods of time, I looked at the bigger things that I could capture whilst passing through. This meant taking in more of the architecture clustered around back streets or near train stations, occasionally grabbing a decent enough picture of a moment passing. Tokyo's not only long been a great testing ground for global architects looking to try out an idea they could not likely get away with elsewhere, but also fascinating for the mixture of buildings that sit next to each other and the way that space is used.

Shadowing Shibuya salarymen

I didn't get to spend as much time in the centre of Tokyo as I did in the suburbs of Yokohama, but grabbed the odd moments when available. I had a couple of separate meetings with people in Shibuya, the place that's always given Tokyo its futuristic feel and where foreign camera crews often head for their iconic footage of the city. Bewildering as it can be to the first-timer, the chaos of the crowds can be a balm for the seasoned Tokyophile.

Cerulean Tower escalators, Shibuya

Now that I'm back at work, I've got a stack of stuff to do, including finishing off the DELTA course that I started a year ago and getting to grips with a new area of teaching - GCSE ICT. This will mean simultaneously being a student of a Cambridge qualification and a teacher of one, which is a rather unusual position to be in! It'll also mean that I'll inevitably struggle to get in as much blogging and other stuff as I'd like. Still, all in a good cause.

Hold on and there'll be films from Japan, possibly more pictures and a bunch more Shelf Life content too. Got to squeeze this stuff in while I can!

Kanagawa balconies, with laundry