Photo Imaging Expo 2009

I havent been going out to take pictures lately, i.e the past few months! but this event has been on my calender for quite some time. PIE 2009, or Photo Imaging Expo 2009 is being held at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo. Though i think the design is abit weird, 2 upside down pyramids? but it was so huge that its presence could be felt from afar.

PIE 2009. Was rather disappointed with the lack of new products but i shouldnt have expected much in the first place with the worsening economic climate and all. I thought the crowd was kinda small but that's because my only other comparison of expos here is Tokyo Motor Show and that is just massive!
The booths.


There wasnt much the see, except for photos from contests and so on. some i really really liked. and i listened to a talk by the photo editor and photographer of Numero Tokyo(fashion mag). was quite an insight to see how the ran stuff.

The rest of the time was spent on snapping booth girls and shows. The Canon models.
From Fujifilm.


Panasonic.

Pentax
Tamron
Epson

Hakuba(maker of photographic accessories and also distibutor of lowepro stuff)
kick boxer model for casio's high speed exilim line. she's a real kickboxer and there was a demonstration goin on but i couldnt get good shots.
panasonic again.
kodak

casio



hopefull ill spend more time on photography from now on :)

Road Trip to Shikoku

Shikoku is one of the 4 main islands in japan and keita, hironori and i decided to go there as our last trip. shikoku is famous for its 88temples and pilgrims often visit everyone of them(apparently sth good will happen if u do) ure supposed to do it on foot but lately ppl have been using cars too. we hardly visited any temples actually. our aim was to go hot springs and eat udon! we rented a prius which is damn fuel efficient and so quiet!
crossing from honshu to shikoku. this is the seto bridge. its a connection of bridges and its so long tht they even have an interchange in the middle of it! by the time we reached our hotel on the first day, it was already 8 or so. so we just headed to the hotspring and slept.
next day, we walked around that area and this is yojima jinja i think.
keita snapping photos.

view from the hotel. this is takamatsu city.

keita's fighting pose :P
our lunch, sannuki udon! damn good.
some light tower at takamatsu port, we were waiting for a ferry to go megijima.


coke promotion.
its hard to see but this is hotel clement takamatsu! a hotel after my name! how cool is that?
a ferry, the ferry we used was crppier.
takamastu city.
on the ferry to megijima. for those who know japanese, guess how the kanji is like. even my 2 frens got it wrong.
some cave in megijima. apparently its man made. its so huge that we were wondering who had that much time to dig such a big hole.





keita stuck!
whats tht statue doing here?
megijima island.
2nd hot spring spot. it has an open area with quite a good view of the ocean. after tht, we immediately drove to another hotspring with an even better view :P
the hand towel i stole from hotel clement tokushima, our 2nd night resting place. there's even a plaza clement :P
view from the hotel.
not much on the 3rd day except driving back but this is a view of biwako, japan's biggest lake.