Business Trip Pictures

A few pictures from a business trip I did a while ago. How long ago? The guy in the last picture sports a woolen muffler, that's how long. Film photography is a lot of fun, but when time is tight it really takes forever to go from film roll to uploaded image file.

I finally picked a new book to read, by the way, and started on "Drip of Death". It's not Miyabe Miyuki of course, but so far it's a well-crafted, fast-paced mystery; the first victim is already dying on page one, and the second body appears after another 70-odd pages. If I hadn't already seen the TV-drama, I'd fear the hospital would be eerily depopulated by the end of the book. And it's not Miyabe Miyuki difficult either. This one won't take more than a few months to get through — much less if I take a few solid hours to read now and again.

Early morning. Really early — the sun's not up and the subway has only just started running. The normally crowded Shinsaibashi shopping street is empty and echoing. The only people around are first few early-morning commuters and the last sloshed stragglers from the previous night.

Get a seat on the left side of the morning Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo, and you'll get a good view of Mount Fuji if you're lucky with the weather. The train really is a little too fast to get a good picture without blurring the foreground a bit.

Shinagawa, Tokyo. A large cluster of modern high-rises around the station, but the buildings quickly become older, smaller and more run-down as you move towards the coast. Kyoto University have offices and seminar rooms here; very convenient for research team meetings and things like that.

The meetings are over, it's already dark outside and it's time to catch a train home. Here Shinagawa stretches out towards the sea in the background.

It's night, I'm finally back in Osaka and I catch a late train on Midōsuji subway line. This guy, another long-distance commuter, looked the way I felt: a bit tired, a bit worn, but happy to be on his way home.