Creative Photos of a Sleeping Baby.

{Space Odyssey}

{Surfer Girl}

{Super Baby}

{Circus}

{Elephant Rider}

Wonderful photo series by Adele Enersen, a copywriter on a maternity leave, features pictures of her sleeping baby girl dressed up in cute outfits. These are so cute make me want to take some of my own when my baby is born. But I am not so sure whether I will have the energy, cause it's definitely some excellent pre-planning there.

To see more, visit her blog.

Please do it at home! (家でやろう!)

I’m not a conservative person (at least, I don’t think I am) but some of the things I see people doing lead me to think that either people’s values are changing for the worse, or that I’m getting old and conservative. What prompts me to write such things? Well, my daily subway train journey has prompted me to write this: loud music from headphones, sitting improperly (taking up too much space), applying make-up, eating and drinking, throw garbage on the platforms, talking loudly, and putting their belongings on the seats next to them..., didn't we ALL learn these things when we were in kindergarten and elementary school? Where are peoples' Manners? Public Decency? and Respect for Those Around You???

Japanese are famous for their manners (マナー). Even big cities in Japan like Tokyo and Osaka have less crime and more general politeness than other large metropolises in the world. There is crime and there are rude people in Japan…but considerably less than in cities overseas.

The high level of politeness in Japan means that the bad manners that one most commonly encounters are things like smoking or eating while walking, putting make-up on while riding the train, music turned up too loud on headphones, not giving up a seat on a train or a bus to the elderly, and using cell-phones near the silver seats (seats for pregnant women, elderly and the disabled) on the train where they’re supposed to be turned off. So, from 2008, Tokyo Metro Subway company started a series of good manners posters shown above.

I don't know if posting posters alone will help (probably not), but I do wish New York City MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) will do something, or at least have some posters like these to remind people to improve their basic manners. I even think the MTA should hire people monitoring our behavior, and by doing so, we can keep the trains, platforms and train stations nice and clean. They do so in Taiwan, they don't even let you chew gum in the stations, and you can see their trains and stations are still very nice and clean after so many years of service.

Memorial Day Weekend at Newport Rhode Island

This week was a short and a fast one. It's been a busy one, with a couple of fun projects I'm working on. Looking forward to the weekend to do some reading, some exercise and run some errands.

I leave you with some photos from our Memorial Day Weekend at Newport Rhode Island.

Bellevue Avenue, Newport's most fashionable address, is a long, straight street lined with palatial mansions, grand houses, and the occasional bungalow.

{The Breakers}

{The Breakers Ocean Facade}

{The Breakers South Wing}

{The Breakers South Wing Garden}

The Breakers, the Gilded Age summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II is the most visited attraction in Rhode Island. Part of a 13-acre estate on the cliffs, it maintains a commanding position facing east overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, the home was constructed between 1893 and 1895 at the then-astronomical cost of more than $7 million. The Breakers Mansion, regarded as the grandest of Newport's summer "cottages", served as a symbol of the Vanderbilt family’s social and financial preeminence.

Cornelius Vanderbilt died at the age of 56, leaving the Breakers to his wife, Alice Vanderbilt. She outlived her husband by 35 years and died at the age of 89 in 1934. In her will, The Breakers was given to her youngest daughter Gladys. An ardent supporter of The Preservation Society of Newport County, Gladys opened The Breakers in 1948 to raise funds for the Society. In 1972, the Preservation Society purchased the house from her heirs. Although the mansion is owned by the Society, the original furnishings displayed throughout the house are still owned by the family.

{Marble House}

{Marble House}

{Marble House Ocean Facade}

{Chinese Tea House}

The Marble House was built between 1888 and 1892 for railroad baron William Vanderbilt. The Gilded Age mansion was designed by Richard Morris Hunt at a cost of $11 million--$7 million of which paid for the 5000,000 cubic feet of white marble. Upon completion, Mr. Vanderbilt gave the house to his wife Alva as her 39th birthday present. Alva Vanderbilt was a leading hostess in Newport society, and envisioned Marble House as her Temple to the Arts in America.

After Vanderbilt's divorced in 1895, Alva married his friend Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont, moving down the street to Belcourt. After his death, she reopened Marble House and added a Chinese Tea House on its seaside cliffs, where she hosted rallies for women's suffrage. She sold the house to Frederick H. Prince in 1932. Prince's estate gave the house and its furnishings to the Preservation Society of Newport County in 1963.

{ Cliff Walk}

{Sunset at Cliff Hills}

Umbrella Street (傘の町)

[via fuluk]

[via fuluk & Josè Rafael Navarro]

[via lizuc]

I saw this post on Lilli's blog That Saturday dot com and I just have to re-post it! J and I have been thinking about going to Spain for a long time but we haven't have time to make it happen. I want to go to Spain, of course for the architecture of Barcelona or the streets of Madrid, but I didn't know about this Umbrella Street in Alicante, Spain until now. When I saw these images I was overwhelmed. To tell the truth, I am not a romantic girl who likes rain. Usually unbrella made me sad because it associated with gray, rainy days….But this one is totally different! These made me feel happy, isn’t it amazing?

Cute kitten! (かわいい子猫ちゃん！)

{image via Agent M Loves Tacos}

Well, I don't know anything about this cute kitten. I found it on Agent M Loves Tacos. It's just so cute I want to share with you.

Peace and quiet: Shinzō Maeda (前田真三)

Look carefully. These are photos, not paintings. These photos are taken by Shinzo Maeda (前田真三), his photos are beautiful enough to fool you into thinking they are paintings. Shinzo Maeda is a Japanese photographer famous for landscape photographs and movies. He was born in 1922 in Hachioji City on the outskirts of Tokyo into a large family whose father worked in the forest industry. Before he became a full time photographer he was what we called a salaryman (サラリーマン) employed by Nichimen Co., Ltd.( a clothing manufacturer), and worked there for 17 years. In 1965 he quit Nichimen to pursue photography full time. By 1967 he launched his own photo agency called Tankei Photo Agency Co., Ltd. in Tokyo. This led to a long and successful career as a landscape photographer. His personal style of landscape photography won him a number of major awards in his lifetime, including the top prize of the Japan Photographers Association. When he died in 1998 he had published forty six photography books in Japan, eight in other countries, as well as produced films. His son Akira Maeda (前田晃) is also an accomplished landscape photographer who continues in his father's tradition.



Shinzo Maeda is said to be one of the big names in Japanese landscape photography. He doesn't seem to be that well known in Europe or the US. I came across his photos through these postcards I bought 20 years ago and was transfixed by them. Just these small printouts are still quite breathtaking. His photos have a very high quality with great sense for colors, composition and detail often mixed with a great amount of quietness and peacefulness. And in this quiet, peaceful way, I see the landscape change. Shinzo Maeda took his photos not only with his lens but with his heart; he shown people not only what he saw but what he felt through the eyes of his heart.

Thanks to Shinzo Maeda, the town Biei's(美瑛) beauty is widely known. He liked this town so much that he moved to Biei later in his life to take pictures. Takushinkan Gallery (拓真館) in Biei, Hokkaido(北海道 美瑛), a photo art gallery dedicated to Shinzo Maeda, which opened in 1987 still continues to this day.

I like to flip through his postcards or books especially when I need a break or an escape. His photos can always calm me down and take me to a quiet peaceful world. I'd been to Hokkaido but never Biei. I would like to go there and see what he saw someday soon.