About a month ago towards the end of March 2014, I had my final opportunity to visit a winter garden night illumination. They are among my favorite winter activities in Korea. There is just something magical about being out in the cold, dark winter night surrounded by millions of bright lights. It really does feel like a fairy land in another world.
This particular garden was north of Seoul, even north of Dongduchon, which is getting fairly close to the Demilitarized Zone (at least as the crow flies). I elected to go with a tour group to the Herb Island Lighting Festival. I had looked at the possibility of visiting the garden independently, but the last bus left Herb Island only shortly after dark, and would not give me the opportunity to really enjoy the winter lighting.
So off I went with the tour group. The bus ride itself was only a little over an hour. However the line to get into the parking lot was so long, it added an extra 45 minutes to getting to the garden. We arrived as the sun was setting, but still had to wait for complete darkness set in.
The garden was effectively divided into two sections. The farther one out was more of an open field with rows of lights, along with tunnels of lights. There was also plenty of Christmas decorations, which was an interesting sight in the middle of March. The crowds started growing after it was completely dark and it required some maneuvering to get pictures without too many people in them.
Since I was with a tour group, I had a limited amount of time to enjoy the garden. Granted two hours is a lot of time to take pictures, but it is not always enough time to just sit and take it all in.
The other part of the garden was more of the sunken garden filled with even more lights. This garden was a bit more elaborate and there were numerous trees with colored cherry blossom lights.
Other parts of the garden were nets in a wide variety of colored lights covering the winter shrubs. I enjoyed the sunken garden part a bit more, because the decorations really did feel like a magical world, and reminded me the most of the Morning Calm Arboretum I visited the previous year.
It may not have been enough time to just sit back and spending hours pretending to be in the world of Avatar, but it was still plenty enjoyable to see the gorgeous, colored light gardens and send out winter in a proper fashion.
I’ve been interested in visiting DisneySea ever since I saw pictures from the park a few years ago, and I was able to finally make that happen on my second trip to Tokyo. With this trip, I have officially been to all the Disney resorts. Granted, I haven’t visited every park in every resort, but I have been to Disneyland in California, Disneyworld in Florida, Disneyland Paris, Disneyland Hong Kong, and now Disneyland Tokyo Resort. I didn’t go to the Disneyland Tokyo park, but elected to go to DisneySea. This park is not just a mere miniature replica of Disneyland, like the other Disneyland parks. DisneySea is a park unique to Tokyo and it has several different theme areas inspired by ocean legends and other myths. The installations are actually very well done, and if you like theme parks, it is certainly worth your time.
I had originally planned to go to DisneySea on Sunday of my visit, but I made a change to go to Nikko instead after my Saturday trip had to be canceled due to excessive snow. However, when I got to Nikko and realized the bus service was canceled, and it would be a pain in the ass to stumble in the piles of snow and ice to visit the shrines, I made the decision to return to Tokyo and go visit DisneySea. It was like the universe was telling me I should be there rather than fighting the elements, especially since that Sunday the weather in Tokyo was gorgeous, sunny, clear and cold.
I got to DisneySea around 1300 which left me around nine hours to visit the park. In truth that is more than enough time to walk around and enjoy everything, but it made it a bit tight to ride all the rides I wanted to. I took advantage of the Fast Pass system to visit as many rides as I could, but since the times for Fast Passes were staggered, I ended up having to wait until the very end of the evening to visit some of the most popular rides like Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I really do like the Fast Pass system, since it enables you to not have to wait in line if you don’t want to, and if I had been at DisneySea when it opened rather than midday, it would not have been an issue.
The details of the installations were very beautiful and intricate and didn’t feel cheesy at all. The rides were actually pretty fun too, and give you as much thrill bang for your buck as you would expect from Disney rides. I wished the rides had a line for single riders like Disneyland Hong Kong, but you can’t have everything in life. The wait times for the most popular rides topped out at about 90 minutes, and even when it was an hour to closing time, one of the most popular rides (Journey to the Center of the Earth) was still 60 minutes.
There was also a wide variety of food to eat, and unlike other Disneyland parks, some of the restaurants at DisneySea serve alcohol. The shopping was pretty decent, though strangely light on T shirts for adults. Once you have seen the absolute capitalist mecca that is Disneyworld shops, all the other Disneyland resorts have a very high bar to reach.
There was a light show and fireworks scheduled, but had to be canceled due to gusty winds. While I do love me some fireworks, the cancellations enabled me to fit in all the rides towards the end. It also gave me more time to enjoy the park at night, because it looked especially beautiful with all the colored lights.
My absolute favorite place, a place I could have just camped out forever in if it wasn’t for the hordes of young children, was Ariel’s Grotto, or as I preferred to call it, Ariel’s Acid Trip. Seriously, I can only imagine what this place would be like if you were high on hallucinogens, because the imagery itself in real life was fantastical enough. Whoever were the art designers for this place should be commended, because I adored the crazy colors and outlandish decorations. I kept going back, because I wanted to take it all in and sear it to my permanent memory. The grotto is definitely geared more toward young children in terms of rides and play areas, but it is a place anyone who loves crazy colors can enjoy for themselves.
DisneySea is part of the larger Disneyland Tokyo resort, and both are linked by the Disneyland resort monorail. It is also extremely easy to get to Disneyland resorts from Tokyo proper. The JR station is Maihama Station located on the JR Keiyo Line, which can be accessed from a variety of popular stations that connect with the Tokyo metro, like Tokyo Station and Hatchobori. It’s a roughly 30 minute train ride to Maihama, and then you transfer to the Disneyland monorail line to get to the park you want. I do have to say that it’s kind of crappy that you actually have to pay for the Disneyland train ride, but I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
DisneySea is open year round, though I deliberately chose to visit in the winter time, because I know the crowds are even MORE massive in the summertime. The winter hours were actually quite good, open from 0800 to 2200 on weekends. I seriously recommend this place if you like Disneyland, and if you want to visit a unique park you won’t find in any other Disneyland resort around the world. It’s definitely worth your time.
This batch of photos were in the first batch that I edited with Adobe Lightroom 5. I couldn’t push the limits of what the editing software can do, because I shot these photos in JPEG rather than RAW. But even then, it was still pretty cool to see how I far I could enhance and sharpen the photos. I particularly had fun punching up the colors to almost border on hyper realism (though I didn’t actually change any of the colors- they really do look like that in reality), particularly the photos taken in Ariel’s Grotto. Low light photography can be hit for miss for me (though I am getting better), so I was very pleased with how all of these turned out.
For President’s Day weekend I went back to Tokyo, because I wanted to see it in the winter time. I figured the weather would be good enough, plus there weren’t many things I wanted to do in the winter time. Or at least I thought at the time I made my initial vacation plans.
It snowed the first day of my weekend. The snow was flurrying when I first landed that morning, and as the day progressed and turned into night, the snowfall thickened. I was glad I had an umbrella with me to shield me from the snow falling upon me, but it was beautiful to watch the snow fall. I spent the late afternoon and early evening in Ueno Park, which is a very large urban park in the middle of Tokyo.
The snowfall was delicate and pure white, and it laid a gentle blanket over the trees and the paths. The streetlights and particularly the lanterns added some spot illumination to make you feel like you were in a winter wonderland, like Narnia.
As it got darker, the otherworldly aspect of the city became even more pronounced. It was like the winter night scenes in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick version), only without a hedge maze or a madman with an ax chasing you.
Of course there is often a downside to winter snowfall, and that was certainly the case the next day. I woke up early, because I intended to go up to Nikko for a day trip. What I found is that the snow had fallen all night, and it was now several inches on the streets. But by this point, the temperature rose enough to turn to rain. Just imagine what you get when combine several inches of snow with driving rain. You get large pools of standing, cold, slushy water. My feet were soaked entirely through, and my train was canceled to due to heavy snowfall.
So even though the snow was melting fairly rapidly that day, there was still enough on the ground to enjoy the East Garden of the Imperial Palace. Parts of the garden were closed for the day due to the snowfall, but there were some winter blossoms on the trees.
The next day, the trains were running to Nikko, but the local buses weren’t. While Tokyo appears to have gotten four inches of the snow the day prior, Nikko got around 12 inches of snow, since it is located higher in the mountains. While the trains could get through, the roads hadn’t been completely plowed, and there was a danger of avalanches. I ended up returning to Tokyo shortly thereafter, because my day’s plan were ruined.
Later that night, I partook in one of Tokyo’s winter illuminations. It wasn’t as colorful or elaborate as the ones I visited in Korea, but it was nice nonetheless. A very long stretch of road behind the Marouni Building was lined with trees illuminated by clear lights. It was pretty, though I love me some garden illuminations. The crisp winter coldness and the cold, clear lights was a perfect accompaniment to the absolutely delicious sakura chocolate latte with sakura whipped cream topping as I walked up and down the street.
What I learned from this trip is that I need to be judicious in selecting winter vacation destinations. It’s one thing to pick something you know will be filled with snow. But you also run the risk that things will be shut down due to the weather.
But I did get my fix of beautiful winter landscapes. I got my fix even more when I was editing the photos. I recently took a digital photography class, and part of the class was a licensed copy of Adobe Lightroom 5. Even though I shot my Tokyo photos in JPEG, as opposed to RAW, it was quite interesting to see what I could do with the software to pretty up the pictures. I was going for photo enhancement that just bordered on appearing to be paintings.
There are a couple things I love about winter. I love the cold weather, the clear days when I can feel the winter chill and see the cool tint of the full winter sun. Even though I don’t get the opportunity all that often, I love snow tubing. When I was a kid I used to ski on occasion, but I don’t do that now, and I never learned to snowboard. However, sledding/snow tubing is a lot of fun, and I like speeding down the mountain in a rubber tube. Korea does have its ski resorts, but I’ve never been THAT motivated to go deep into the mountains to get my sledding fix.
However at some of the Seoul amusement parks, they set up small sledding parks for fun. It’s nothing like black diamond sled runs or anything like that, but it allows you to get your winter play fix conveniently. I chose to go to Everland, which is the same amusement park I went to for my Halloween jollies back in the fall. Everland was a good choice, because they simultaneously had their Snow Festival and their Romantic Illumination Festival. And since night illuminations are another thing I love about winter, I couldn’t pass it up.
I had the opportunity to go to Everland on a Monday, which proved to be a very fortuitous choice. I figured there wouldn’t be THAT many people there, because most people would be at work or school. I was definitely right, because compared to what I’ve seen on the weekend, the park was practically deserted. Most of the rides were open (though not their biggest thrill rides, because it was winter), but I was only there for two reasons: to sled as much as possible, and to enjoy night illuminations after darkness fell.
There were three sledding runs available: the Snow Buster for little kids only, the Jungfrau a gentler sled run, and the Eiger, which is for older kids/adults. Yes, there were height requirements to go sledding here, and attendants actually had a measuring stick to ensure little kids were tall enough. The sled runs are very straightforward. You get towed up to the top of the hill in your tube, and then you slide down, turn in your tube, get in line to get another one, and do it again. The only difference between the Jungfrau and the Eiger sled runs, is that the Eiger is a bit steeper and longer, so you get more speed and the thrill is a bit greater.
I did a few runs on the Jungfrau just to warm up. This sled run had more people, because it was easier and little kids could ride it. I have a feeling that the line to get a tube and up the hill on the weekend can get rather long, but since this was a Monday, it only took about 10-15 minutes to wait.
Afterward, I moved up the hill to the Eiger sled run, where I could get much more speed. This was where the sparse attendance really paid off. Basically there was no line to get a tube. It took longer to be towed to the top, than to get an inner tube. I was able to be towed up to the top, slide down, and immediately get a new tube to go back up again. I took advantage of all this to just continually do sled runs until I got too hungry.
After dinner, the sun was setting, so it was just a matter of time before it got dark enough to really enjoy the night illuminations at their gardens. Since it is the middle of winter, there were no actual flowers in the garden, and all the delicate plants were wrapped in thick straw to protect them from the weather. This was a good opportunity to take some beautiful low light pictures. I particularly enjoyed all the different gardens around Seoul that offer night illuminations during the winter. It may be very cold at night, but it just adds to the beauty of the setting.
The illuminated gardens offered up a castle fountain, a fairy tale carriage, wide variety of trees, faux marble columns, and the like. Because it was a weekday, the park closed earlier than it does on weekends, but it was more than enough time to see everything and take it all in. And since it was a weekday, I didn’t have to fight hordes of people to take pictures.
I recently started working with the manual settings on my DSLR, because I’m taking a digital photography class to improve my skills. Up until now, I’ve only used the automatic settings on my camera, but this trip was a good opportunity to try the manual settings to experiment with ISO, shutter speed and f/stop.
I decided to take pictures on my night landscape setting and then experiment with manual settings to see the difference. Since this was a low light setting, it was critically important that manual settings allowed for the camera to capture enough light. This was my first go at it, and it was OKAY. I quickly discovered that using an ISO setting of 800 with my other manual settings wasn’t getting the job done, so I bumped it up to ISO 3200. I knew this wasn’t ideal, because the higher the ISO setting, the more grain in the picture. I ended up adjusting the f/stop down as low as my camera lens would allow (f3.8), which certainly did have a noticeable positive difference.
I didn’t realize my biggest mistake until later when I was able to examine the settings on my pictures taken with the night landscape setting and compare them to what I had for my manual setting pictures. I knew that my ISO was higher than desirable, but I had the f/stop correct. However, I was WAAAY off with the selected shutter speed. I had my camera set for 1/125, which is way too fast for a low light setting. My night landscape setting photos had a shutter speed of 1/8, which is much slower to allow more light in.
So the day was a productive one. I got all my snow tubing jollies out of my system. I got to enjoy the delightful night illuminations that make me feel that I was walking in a winter fantasy land. And it was a good opportunity to learn more about what my camera is capable of, and what I need to do to take beautiful night photos.
My So Called Creative Life 