Trip to the Palace of Versailles

Well I've been in Belgium for over a month now.  Haven't really done a whole lot.  Trying to make a little money off of this trip.  I will add that I've spent a month in Belgium back when I was in the Air Force.  Back then I made 2 trips to Brussels, a trip to Brugge, Zebrugge, Bastogne (where the Battle of the Bulge was fought during WW2), and spent the day in Paris.  So sightseeing here is not in my system this time around.  I would like to make it back to Germany, but any place of interest to me is over 3 hours away. 

Last weekend four of my co-workers, also here for 90 days, and I took a bus tour to the Palace of Versailles.  It's located about 12 miles outside of Paris to the southwest.  It was a 3 hour bus tour.  I think the driver was doing about 50 mph the whole way.  Needless to say, it was a long ride. 

Our bus let us off up the street a little.  We are crossing the street into the parking area.

Here is a statue of Louis XIV

 Up ahead through the gate is the area where everyone gets to que to get into the Palace.  We arrived around 10:30am.  We waited in line for an hour before we were able to get inside.

Here's yours truely waiting in line.  I've been lots of places and this one has to absolutely hands down have had the most people I've ever seen in one place. 

 After an hour, we made it inside.  Here is the main courtyard in front.

Everything is really ornate.  There are statues and carvings everywhere.

Here is a view into the chapel. 

Here I am heading toward the Hall of Mirrors.

Here is the ceiling of the Hall of Mirrors.  If I recall correctly, I believe that every room in the Palace had some painting on the ceiling.  Sadly the light was not good enough and there was too much distance for a flash to get a good picture of most of the paintings.

Everything was just extravagant. 

Here is a painting of Napoleon.  Although he never lived in the Palace, there are several pictures and statues of him. 

The pictures above and below are taken out of different windows of the same garden area.

Once I finished touring the inside I went to explore the vast garden area.  The picture below is a screen capture from Google Maps.  I highlighted the area in red that was available to the paying public.  Even as large as this area looks, it's only about a tenth of the entire palace grounds back in the late 1700's.  In the lower right quadrant is the Palace building itself and to the right of the building you can see the parking lot.  See how tiny the buses and the cars look.  That should give you a sense of scale. 

The following are some of the grounds and fountains.  Sadly the majority of the fountains weren't running.  I believe the had some kind of water conservation going on.

This fountain has a cool story.  The figure lying there is the giant Enceladus.  In Greek mythology he was defeated by the Olympians and buried in magma. 

Here's a view of the back of the Palace.

This is the Apollo fountain.  I've seen pictures of this with the water on and it's pretty cool looking.

Visit to Asukasa and Odaiba

Off on another tour.  This time to an area of Tokyo called Asakusa to visit the Senso-Ji Temple.  Later we went to an area that is an artificial island in Tokyo bay where they have a lot of different types of entertainment. 

Here's the view down the street from where the bus dropped us off.  It's only one of several gates into the Senso-Ji complex.

Once inside and to the right was small area.  To one side is this building which if you look at the next picture would be sitting off on my right.  In the building above there were different groups of musicians playing traditional Japanese instruments.  It was pretty cool.  I took a short video just to capture some of the music.  I really would have liked to left the camera there to record all of it.

Straight ahead in the bottom pic is the Senso-Ji Shrine

One of the many statues around the place.

Some of the buildings in the temple area have a very old origin date.  Like the Five-storied pagoda in the background.  The original pagoda was built around 942.  It's since been rebuilt several times.  The one you see here was built in 1973 after having been destroyed in WWII.













Here is one of the, if not the main hall in the complex. 

Main Hall up close

                         

Here is another one of the gates into the complex called the Hozo-mon Gate.  It leads out to a pedestrian street lined with shops that you see in the next picture. 

Another statue 

Three guesses as to what this is.  Nope.
and Nope and No you're still wrong.

I thought this was odd.  I noticed it after I came out of the restroom.  It's a smoking area.  If you look at the girl standing on the left.  You'll notice to her right side is a grill area.  That's where they're flicking their ashes.  There are three of those grills there. 

There was a nice little wooded are inside the temple complex.  That's where

I shot the pic above and below.

When we left the Senso-Ji Temple we walked down the street a couple blocks and there was a dock for a "water" bus.  The one we rode on looked just like this one.  It took us down the Sumida River to a nice park. 

On the way out of the park we came across this newly wed couple.  Our tour guide asked if our group could take pictures.  As you can see they're in traditional Japanese clothes. 

Here's the last picture before leaving the park.  This tree is claimed to be 300 years old.

After the park we boarded the bus again for Odaiba.  Like I said earlier it is mostly an entertainment zone.  There's a ginormous ferris wheel attached in some way to this very large mall called Venus Fort.  If any of you have been to Caesers Palace in Las Vegas, it was very much like that on the inside.  Very grand.

This picture on the right and the one below are in the central courtyard at the mall.  It's an  open air area with things for the kids.  They both looked like lost of fun.  The one below if you can't tell are very large bubbles that the children get sealed in and get to roll around on the water.

Now I had to take a picture of this.  I've seen only a couple since being here.  If you enlarge the picture you can see what it is.  Kind of looks like a urinal.  No.  It's a hand dryer in the bathroom.  Luckily no one was in there when I snapped this.  It was made for very little hands.  I had about a quarter inch on either side of my hands while they were in there.  So you know it set of my germaphobe vibe.

Matsumoto Castle

Well I've been in Japan just about 2 weeks now.  I don't have any pictures of Yokota Air Base yet.  I did take a tour to a very nice Japanese castle called Matsumoto Castle in the city of Matsumoto.  Here is a wiki link for information on the castle:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsumoto_Castle.  We left base at 6:30am by bus.  Our first stop was at a museum in Matsumoto that displayed Japanese Woodblock paintings called Ukiyo-e.  It was very interesting. I didn't take any pictures there.  Afterward we headed on to the castle.

Here's the gated entrance onto the grounds once you have your ticket.

Through the gate is a nice garden area.  Through the green trees you can see the Azalea "bush" below.  I don't know how they grew this thing, but it looked more like small tree. 

  

 Just past the garden area you get your first glimpse of the castle.

Yours truly.

Here is the entrance to the castle itself. 

Below is the view back down the steps where you enter.  Everyone must take of their shoes.  There was a gentleman standing outside that was handing everyone plastic bags to put your shoes in. 

Here's a painting of what the castle and the area around it looked like almost 400 years ago.

 





This a shot of the inside.  This particular floor wasn't lit as well as the other floors.  It was intended to be a hidden floor and was made without any real "windows".  The view from the outside appears as if the building has 5 floors, while there is actually 6. 

 

 There were several displays of weapons and armor spread throughout the building. 

This view is looking down the main avenue toward the castle.

This area had picnic tables set up.  On the other side of it was the gift shop.  Couldn't resist this pic because of the Wisteria hanging from the overhang.  Did it smell good!!

Here's a shot as I moved around to the back of the castle looking across the moat.

And here at the far end of the moat looking back.

Here are two pictures from up in the upper levels of the castle.  I thought it was pretty neat to see the snow on the mountains to the west.  Kind of looked like the Rockies.  The Japanese call the mountains the Japanese Alps.

This one below is just looking back toward the gift shop which was near the entrance to the grounds.

These two pictures, above and below, are of the Yohashira-Jinja Shrine I came across while walking around town.  It was off of an alley of shops. 

And last but not least, Mt. Fuji.  On the bus ride to Matsumoto there were numerous chances to snap a quick shot.  But they were just that:  QUICK.  The ride was through pretty mountainous terrain.  So as soon as you'd get a glimpse and go for the camera, a mountain would block the view or we'd go through a tunnel.  I wasn't expecting so many opportunities.  So, on the way back I was ready.  This was the best of the 5 that I grabbed.  There were times that we were much closer, but I happened to be on the wrong side of the bus then.  The last weekend in May, there is a trip to Mt. Fuji that I'm going to try to get on.