Owner: BrownNoisePhotos URL:http://brownnoisephotos.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 18:58:57 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Personal photoblog with pictures from trips, holidays, travel, daily life with some backgroundinformation and depending on the subject links to more detailed online information, average updates once a week Site statistics:Click here
More Crete pics 2005-10-16 22:27:00 Here are some more pics from our last trip to Crete
. The first serie in my former post was a selection, but from now on I have decided to post some pics every time around a subject or theme. Today it's food. When it comes to food Noriko is the photographer. Everywhere we go she always takes pictures from food and drinks. She considers food as an important part of a country's culture and because of this she always wants to try to taste some local specialties. During out trip to Crete we had our fair share of nice Greek and Cretan cuisine. The following pics were taken by Noriko. Here and there I might put some short comment.Pic from the local Saturdaymarket at ChaniaPic from one of the fish stands at the Turkish market hall at ChaniaSouvlaki BBQ at one of the street cafés at ChaniaVery tasty fishsoup that Norika ate at a small dinnercafe at the Turkish Market hallTasty swordfish that I ate at the same place
Back from Crete 2005-10-14 20:01:00 Hi Everybody,Noriko and I got back today from our week holiday on Crete
, Greece. We had a very nice trip with lots of excellent food and some nice daytrips. We had two very rainy days which is quite remarkable for this time of year. But this bad weather also created some nice photo-opportunities. Besides some very colourful pics I also shot some black and white ones. Some came out quite nice IMHO.I'm still sorting out all the different pics (I shot almost 700 pics in just one week time!!!).Anyway here is a little preview. The coming period I will post some more. Hope you'll like them.And for those who don't know: By clicking on the image you get a larger version.
I'm off for a week 2005-10-06 20:08:00 I won't be posting the next week. I'm leaving tomorrow early morning for a week holiday to Crete, Greece. I'll promise I make lots of pics, which I will be posting from next week. So I'll make it up to you!Bye for now!
Good memories 2005-10-04 20:16:00 Last sunday we visited my parents and my sister, brother in law and our little nieces Iris and Fleur where there too. Not so long time ago my mother took out my brother's and my old Playmobil. Iris and Fleur both like Playmobil very much. Fleur, the youngest who can be quite inpatient and can get bored very easily can play with it all day. Noriko and I helped set up the circus and this brought back some very good memories
about my childhood when I played with Playmobil myself together with my brother. Through the years we both collected quite some Playmobil stuff. It's nice to see that Iris and Fleur still enjoy playing with Playmobil. Anyway, here are some pics from last Sunday. Official Playmobilsite
Japan in Holland 2006-02-13 01:20:00 Last Thursdaynight Noriko, my good friend Andy from England and me went to a socalled izakaya in Amsterdam. An izakaya is a Japan
ese pub. You can check the link for some more info what an izakaya is. There are not many izakayas in Holland
, but in Japan it's a popular form of eating out after work. In a way you can say that an izakaya is the Japanese equivalent of the Spanish tapas bar.Anyway, this is a very nice place. I've been to this place a few times before. The time you spend there you really have the feeling that you are abroad. The atmosphere in this place is exactly the same as in Japan. About 90 to 95% of the customers are Japanese, which often is a good sign.Here are a few pics. To keep a bit of the same kind of atmosphere of my posts from Japan most pictures you are about to see are foodpictures. The main dishes are barbequed meats on a stick, like yakitori, tori-miso (both chicken), buta-miso (pork), but they serve many small snacks, but also udon. The name of the place
Long time no pics 2006-02-08 03:07:00 It's a long time since my last post. More than two weeks. I have been quite busy, both with work and in private. So I didn't took any pictures until last Saturday. From January 25th till February 5th the anual International Filmfestval of Rotterdam took place. I think I discovered this festival about 6 years ago. Since then I'm a regular visitor. The festival offers a wide range of international and some national independent movies. I don't know the exact number of films, but I think there were about 250 movies shown during the 12 days of the festival. One of the reasons I like the festival is that Asian movies often are well represented at the festival. My main interest are movies from Japan, China and South-Korea, but I also see movies from other countries occasionally. I have seen some real nice movies the past 6 years.Last year I visited 17 movies in 9 days. Although there were plenty movies this year I would have liked to watch I took it easy this year. Basically because of my
Japan (13) - The last pics 2006-01-23 23:57:00 Well, the holiday is over. We got back from Japan
last Saturday. Because of suddenly heavy snowing in Tokyo we left with a three and a half hour delay, but Sunday after reading the latest news on TV-text we realized that we had been very lucky. A few hours after we left most flights were canceled because of the winterweather and about 10.000 people had to spend the night at the airport.Parts of Japan have been suffering from the most heavy winterweather in about 25 years. There were parts of Japan were they had more than three metres of snow, but those parts were still quite far away from Tokyo. During our stay in Tokyo it was only a bit chilly every now and then and we had one afternoon of rain, for the rest it was dry, sometimes a bit cloudy sometimes some sunshine, but basically pretty good weather. Anyway, we were glad we only had some delay and didn't got stucked at the airport.Here are some of the last pics that were taken during our last night. Noriko and I went out to a Korean
Japan (12) - Last post from here 2006-01-20 09:34:00 BTW, I forgot to mention, but the previous post was my last post from Japan
. Tomorrow Noriko and I are flying back to Holland.
Japan (11) - more food and Japanese toiletexperience 2006-01-20 08:14:00 Last night we had sukiyaki for dinner. You can check the link for more info if you don't know what sukiyaki is. The main ingredient is beef, but very thin sliced and very tender and soft. The cows that are used for sukiyaki beef get special treatment and food. This treatment includes massages and lots of beer in the cows diet. This result in a very soft, tender yummy beef that is hard to get outside Japan
.Sukiyaki is prepared in one pan on the table. Everybody prepares his own meat and vegetables and sip them in a small cup with raw egg before eating. Not everybody like to use the raw egg, but it's also okay to eat your own prepared meat and vegetables with rice. At least one time during our visit we eat sukiyaki. It's one of my favorite Japanese
dishes. Below you can check some of the pics from last night. Although not planned I bought a small compact digital camera yesterday afternoon. Noriko and I were at Yamada, a chain of electronic stores. While we were looking around we saw
Japan (10) - Funny Engrish and other stuff 2006-01-18 16:36:00 Noriko was outside Tokyo from Monday till Yesterday visiting some of her friends. The day before yesterday I helped Noriko's mother to replace most of the ceilinglights downstairs. It took some time to find out how to remove the covers of the lights. Once I figured out it wasn't so hard. Those were all round TL-lights and I totally replaced 8 of those lights. When I was replacing the lights Noriko's mother was getting ingredients for the dinner that I was going to cook. I made a Dutch dish called Hachée (pronounced hash-sjay), a kind of beef stew. See pic below. Noriko's mother and sister liked it very much. Taito our little two and half year old nephew didn't eat it because he already ate at the daycarecentre. A little more than a week ago I made Dutch pea-soup. They also liked it, including Taito. He ate a lot of it and kept asking for more. For more English info about Dutch food and recipes you can check here. Yesterday I went to Ochanomizu and Shinjuku. From Ochanomizu I do Read more:Japan
, Funny
, Engrish
, stuff
Japan (9) - Nagano visit part 6 2006-01-16 17:38:00 Here are the food pictures that I promised yesterday. These pictures were taken at restaurant Sakura (Japan
ese for cherry blossom) in Nagano
during lunch last Friday after our visit
to Zenko-ji temple (see my two previous posts). As some of the pics hopefully will show, it proves that often with Japanese dishes presentation and composition make up half of the dish. Eye for detail and esthetics always form an important part of Japanese culture. You can see this in many Japanese artforms, but also in the way Japanese food sometimes is presented. I'm not sure if I remember all the things that I've been eating, but I will do my best. The starter was a small bowl with some root vegetable comparable with potato (the white stuff) with some sweet beans The box in which the next course was presented looked simple but gorgeous. On top of some sashimi (raw fresh fish), forgot te name of the fish, but it tasted a bit like trout, you see some pickles, sweet fruits and seeweed. On the right you se Read more:Nagano visit
, Nagano visit part
Japan (7) - Nagano visit part 4 2006-01-15 16:54:00 On Friday we went to Zenko-ji temple in Nagano
an old and one of the most famous temples in Japan
. I was here before in springtime 1997, but I never saw the temple complex while there was snow. It attracts a lot of tourist, but it is for a reason, because this is a very nice and gorgeous temple. Here are some pics to give you a bit of an impression. Read more:visit
, Nagano visit
, Nagano visit part
Japan (6) - Nagano visit part 3 2006-01-15 15:46:00 Here is part 3 with pics from Matsushiro castle. I haven't found some more extended information yet about the history of the castle, there is just a little bit of basic information at the info of Matsushiro town (see: link) Near Matsushiro there is a famous battleground, called Kawanakajima where two warlords Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin fought five battles in the 16th century within a period of 11 years. These battles belong to the most famous ones ever fought in Japan
. The picture below shows the sculpture that reminds about the battles between the two warlords. Read more:Nagano
, visit
, Nagano visit
, Nagano visit part
Japan (4) - Nagano visit part 1 2006-01-15 12:46:00 Like I promised last night I'm going to post some of my pics that I made during my stay at Nagano
from Wednesdaynight till Friday where I visit
ed my good friend Motoko. We met each other for the first time in Israel at the kibbutz in 1996, the year that I visited kibbutz Gesher for the fourth time and also the year that my brother got married in Israel. After the wedding I went to the kibbutz and became friends with Motoko and a few other Japan
ese volunteers. Motoko and I kept in touch since then and I made my first visit to Nagano during my first stay in Japan in 1997.This must have been my fourth visit to Nagano. The first night we went to a nice and exclusive Chinese restaurant. You have to take my word that the food was gorgeous, because I forgot to take my camera with me. The next day we visited the mountaintown Matsushiro (see: link1 and link2 ) a quiet and historical town with a nice and peaceful atmosphere. We visited some old historical houses, temples and the local castle. H Read more:Nagano visit
, Nagano visit part
Japan (3) 2006-01-14 18:37:00 Just got back from a nice evening out. We came home a little bit later then I planned when we left home. I was planning to post some pics from my trip to Nagano, but I drunk a little bit too much beer and sake so I think I'll post the pics later this Sunday.Noriko and I went out for dinner together at some Japan
ese Izakaya (Japanese pub), but the food here was a bit more exclusive than in the average Japanese Izakaya. Unfortunately I didn't took my camera to take some pics, but I had some very tasty beef. In Holland we would say it taste like if an angel just pee on your tongue. I also had some soba noodles and some small side dishes which I can't remember all the names of.After that we went to a local jazz-bar (website only in Japanese) for a drink. There was a jam-session going on and there was a very nice, gentle and intimate atmosphere. After the jam-session everybody was gathering around a square table in the middle of the establishment and was drinking and talking. I was the o
Japan (2) 2006-01-10 17:33:00 Today some pics from yesterday and today. Yesterday we all went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant to meet a friend from Noriko's mother. This month he is on a businesstrip to Europe and goes to Cologne, Germany, Milan, Italy and Rotterdam, Holland. He's a designer and a friendly and interesting person. Although he visited Holland before, Noriko and I could give him some tips about typical Dutch food and public transport.In the evening we went out for dinner at a so called Yaki-Niku place. Yaki-niku means 'grilled meat', usually grilled on a hot plate, derived from the Japan
ese verb yaku 'to grill/roast/fry' and niku 'meat'. (Although niku is originally from Chinese, the word has been almost completely naturalised). Although this place was different from Korean barbeque, the style of preparing is similar. You order some plates with different kinds of meat, most of the meat is marinated and you prepare them yourself on the barbeque, that is in the middele of the table. You c
Some maintenance and some animalpics 2007-03-06 07:14:00 I have been doing some maintenance on my weblog. Since January I'm using the New Blogger. One of the new features is the use of labels. The past few days I went through all my previous posts, added labels and added also some extra links to backgroundinformation related to the subject(s) of the post. If you click on a label you'll get all the posts with the same label.This time some animalpics that were shot in our hometown Utrecht both by my girlfriend and me with her camera. She took care of the dog pics and I took care of the cat picsLooks like I've created a monster. A typical case of shooting a picture at the wrong moment. If you didn't know better you would think that the cat was very vicious and ready to scratch my eyes out. But she was only yawning. This is how the cats looks like when she's not yawning.I've posted about the cat and the bulldog before in this post.The dog didn't look very clever, but he compensated it with his friendlyness and enthusiasm If my owner would
Our last weekend's trip (3) 2006-03-28 23:22:00 Today Blogger is much faster, so here is the rest of the pictures from our daytrip a little more than a week ago. In my former two posts you'll find some pics from the city Middelburg, today I post some pics from the nearby city Vlissingen or in English "Flushing" (??). A more extended history of Vlissingen can be found here (requires Acrobat Reader)Most of the pics will speak for themselves, so I'll only post some short comment here and there.Vlissingen was together with Middelburg and Amsterdam the most important harbour during the Dutch Golden Age and on a strategic location. The most famous person from Vlissingen was admiral Michiel Adriaanszoon de Ruijter, the most famous person in Dutch naval history Modern wall paintings go hand in hand with more scenic and historical sceneries.First we thought wow, nice colourful fronts on these houses when we entered this street.But things are not always what they seem!Not all grafiti is a defacement of the wall!I wished I was two doggiesThe
Our last weekend's trip (2) 2006-03-27 19:49:00 As I promised yesterday here are some more pics from our daytrip to Middelburg and Vlissingen last week Sunday March 19th.Blogger is still slow, but not as slow as last night. But it still took 3 to 4 minutes to upload a picture, so for now I'll only post the selected pics from Middelburg. The broader selection still can be seen at my on-line album at Photobucket. Tomorrow I'll post the rest of the selected pics from Vlissingen, unless Blogger is still slow.This is the "Lange Jan" (Long John) a 89 metres high church tower.This is the same churchtower, but from a different angle.The dome that you see belongs to the "Oostkerk" (Eastchurch)Some of the (restored?) merchanthouses that shows the prosperous past of Middelburg.On this insignia you'll find the Latin motto of the province of Zeeland: Luctor et Emergo, I wrestle and rise above. In the insignia you see a lion standing till it's waist in the water, representing the neverending struggle of Zeeland against the water. Through the
Listen to the radio 2007-03-11 12:49:00 My Girlfriend was on Japanese national radio yesterday. She appeared on NHK-radio. NHK is Japan's national broadcasting company, to compare with the BBC in Great Brittain. My girlfriend's contribution was recorded last week on the phone and was broadcastred yesterday. It's a programme about Japanese living abroad. The persons who appear on the programme give a short report about the hometown or country they are living or answering questions. Some time ago she was asked to prepare a report for the programme.My girlfriend's report was about our hometown Utrecht and about the famous Dutch designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld and his Rietveld-Schröder-house. This house is also on the Unesco's world heritage list. During the broadcasting of my girlfriend's report the radiostation showed webcamimages on the internet of the studio and at the same time they showed some pictures my girlfriend provided. She made some screenshots of it which are shown below. In her report she also mentio Read more:Listen
It's been a while 2007-04-04 03:01:00 It's been a while since my last post. Been pretty busy both with work and private. I cycled a lot, but I didn't took much pictures lately. Until last weekend. Last Saturday I went out on the bike early. the weather was looking good. It was a bit chilly in the early morning, but the light in the early morning and late afternoon/early evening is the most gorgeous for photography I think.I'm still in the middle of getting to know my new camera, the Nikon D200. This semi professional camera has, let's say, a little more steep learning curve than the point and shoot compact digital camera's. But finally it's worth the whole learning process, because it will reward you with much better pictures. But I'm still at the beginning of this learning process. But I must say that I was not unhappy with the first results of my first serious photo cycling trip from last Saturday.I cycled from my hometown Utrecht through Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen and Breukelen and then through Loenen (aan de Vecht), N
More Forts (4) 2006-09-19 23:02:00 Now some pictures from 11 days ago when our brother in law took us by car to some forts of the "Hollandse Waterlinie" near where he and my sister and my parents live. Our first goal was Fort Everdingen. There was a guided tour around the fort of one and a half hour. We couldn't have a look inside the fort, because the fort is still in use by the Ministry of Defense. The Explosives Ordnance Disposal Command of the Royal Netherlands Air Force is using the complex until 2007, so probably after 2007 the fort might be open to the public.The guided tour was done by the author of a book about the "Hollandse Waterlinie", that was published 4 years ago. Coincidentally I gave Noriko that book two weeks earlier for her birthday. It was an interesting tour, especially because the author of the book told a lot of interesting details. The fort is located at the river Lek. The tour went through the river forelands which contains some nice typical Dutch landscapes.Along the dyke towards the fort you
More Forts (3) 2006-09-18 23:44:00 I'm still behind with posting pics from our visits of the forts of the "Hollandse Waterlinie". Blogger wasn't helpful because the server was slow for some unknown reason, which caused very long uploadtimes for the pics I wanted to post. Sometimes more than 4 to 5 minutes per picture. When you are running a photoblog it doesn't require much math to figure out how much time it cost to post 12 pictures, so I decided to wait until the server was a bit quicker.Anyway the pictures from my former post about Fort Hinderdam (only Dutch) were taken on September 2nd in the morning. The pictures I'm about to post now were taken on the same day in the afternoon at Fort Lunetten which contains four defenseworks. Lunetten is also the name of the district or neighbourhood of my hometown Utrecht. We visited Lunet I and III. The English word for this type of defense work is lunette, a half moon shaped fortification. Number II and IV are in use by Dutch Scouting and numbers I and III were open for pu
More Forts (1) 2006-09-14 22:59:00 Here are some more pics of the fortresses that we've been visiting the past few weekends. I'm a little behind with posting, so for some more backgroundinformation about the specific fortress I'll refer to the general website of the "Hollandse Waterlinie", The Dutch Water(defense)line. In this post some pics from our visit of Fort Vechten near Utrecht. We visited here two and a half weeks ago. This is the second largest fort after Fort Rijnauwen.This is the back of a machine gun casemate. This is one of the few that still has it's original cast iron gun turret on it. Most of the cast iron gun turrets were taken by the Germans in World War 2 to be used in their warindustry.This is the front of the casemate, here you can see the iron cast gun turret on top of the casemate.On the right side of the wall you can see part of the surrounding moat but it's all covered by duckweed.You often find bunkers nearby the forts in the surrounding meadows. Tomorrow some more pictures from other fort
First anniversary 2006-08-01 23:50:00 Today it's exactly one year ago that I started this photoweblog. No reasons for celebrations, but one year ago I didn't knew if I would manage to publish pictures on a regular basis. I'm now a little over 300 pictures further and I still like doing it, so I guess I will continue.Anyway here are some pics from last Saturday when Noriko and I went to Fort Rijnauwen, just a few kilometres outside our hometown Utrecht and part of the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie, a military line of defence that was build in the second half of the 19th century. For more information about the fortress that we visited and the "Waterlinie" you can check the added links.The fortresses of the "Waterlinie" are not used anymore. Some of them are now nature resorts. Fort Rijnauwen is also a nature resort nowadays and give shelter to some endangered rare plants and animals, like kingfishers, birds of prey like buzzards, grasssnakes, deer, bats etc....You could only enter fortress and the surrounded area with a gui Read more:First
International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) (2) 2007-01-30 04:24:00 Here is a list with the movies from the International
Film FestivalRotterdam
(IFFR) that I've seen so far with my ratings. Those who are interested in the content of the movies can click on the title for an English description.The rating goes from 0/+ to +++++ meaning:0 = very bad+ = bad++ = not so good+++ = good++++ = very good+++++ = excellentElection (+++)Election2 (++++)The bare footed kid (+++) Justice my foot (+++)Throw Down (+++)The last dining table (++1/2)Hana (++++)Anxiety (++++)No Mercy for the Rude (++++)The story of my son (+++)PTU (++++)Strawberry Shortcakes (++++1/2)Living in Fear (++++) Summer Palace (++++) Ex-drummer (++++)Fourteen (++++)Unfortunately had to skip Fourteen because the movie before this one got delayed and then I would have missed my last train, so the rating is based on the contents and other reviews I saw. Hopefully I will be able to watch this one some other time.The Matsugane Potshot Affair (++++)Freesia (+++)Due to a headache I decided to skip thi
More Forts (11) The final part (for this year) 2006-10-15 01:55:00 The Fortsmonth came to an end more than one month ago and still didn't post the last part of the last fort that we visited on September 30th. The only excuse I have is that I was quite busy. The past weekend I went to the Dejima Japanese Film Festival in Amsterdam on Friday and Saturday and on Sunday to the Holland Animation Film Festival in my hometown Utrecht to see two Japanese animation films. I saw a total of 9 movies the past weekend. Not a bad average. In the weeks since my last post until Friday I was busy with all kinds of other stuff, which I'm not going to bore you with. Let's tell something about the fort.The last fort we visited was Fort De Bilt. Although I found most forts interesting to visit I found Fort de Bilt together with Fort Rijnauwen, Fort Pampus and Fort Hinderdam (sorry only Dutch) the most interesting. During the German occupation at World War 2 a lot of forts were only used for storage purposes. But Fort Rijnauwen and Fort De Bilt were also used as an exec
More Forts (10) 2006-10-15 01:48:00 All these posts about forts is almost coming to an end. After this post there will be one more and then it will be finished for a while. But don't get me wrong, I wasn't getting bored with all these forts. Visiting all these places was an interesting experience and it broadened my horizon about a part of Hollands national history where I knew just a little bit about.In this post some pics from Fort 't Hemeltje (Little Heaven), not a logical name for a fort, but this fort got it's name from a nearby farm that has the same name. Till 1993 the fort was used by the Ministry of Defense as an ammunitiondepot. Nowadays it's still in use as a fireworksdepot. Because not many people come here it's a good place for birds. The long eared owl is brooding here and you also find woodpeckers here and a lot of singingbirds.The first pic comes from Google Earth and gives you a view from above.Because of the high humidity you'll find a lot of fungi on the walls.This is what's left of the kitchen
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