The Roppongi Hills courtyard looks a bit better at night than during the day, don’t you think?

The pressurized elevator ride up is surprisingly fast. And the view out the top of Taipei 101 is pretty cool. Like most tourist destinations, it’s the sort of place where you have to exit through the souvenir shop. Food court in the mall down below is pretty tasty, though. But on the whole, I enjoyed the lively night markets and streets in the other districts of Taipei more.

Taken as US 1097 arrived at PHL.

a.k.a. the Champs-Élysées of Japan.

Is that falling snow or noise from the camera sensor? I’ll never tell…

On a clear day in Tokyo, you can see Mt. Fuji off in the distance.

The F train speeds through the Jackson Heights station.

Made for nice nighttime pictures, though.

My trip to Washington DC was postponed because of the record snowfall and its effect on transport into and out of the region. So instead, I snuck into Boston this afternoon ahead of the nor’easter that’s supposed to dump 9 inches of snow on the region.

Given all the inclement weather, the third rail seems like the least of my worries.

The trip was good from business standpoint and I was lucky to be able to see good friends in all three countries, but boy am I thankful to be back home. Two weeks on the road is about my limit for a work-related trip.

I didn’t think much about it until my flight in April from SFO to NRT was in the air, but I spent almost ever other summer in Japan when I was growing up. After 8 years away (far too long in retrospect), would it still feel the same? Had the long economic malaise sapped the country of its vitality?

I was happy to see that while much of the urban landscape of Tokyo had changed—in particular, mega-projects like Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown, and Omotesando Hills were all new to me—the essential character of place hadn’t. The dynamic energy, frenetic pace, and fantastic food were still there, just enhanced by the continued organic evolution of the city.

And that’s what I like most about the place, the jarring discontinuity—no doubt a legacy of the urban planning done by warlords from centuries past. Unlike other cities, Tokyo juxtaposes new and old, with seemingly little concern for continuity. Perhaps it’s wabi-sabi writ large. Regardless, I’m looking forward to going back in June—and much more in the future. Like Hachiko, Japan waits patiently for me to return.

…you spot Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz just outside the first Starbucks store on Pike Place.

On a camera-nerd note, the Ricoh GR Digital II makes for a pretty nice range-finder-like digital camera. The high ISO grain is fairly pleasing and the range of manual control is rarity on a digital camera this small. It’s eminently pocket-able and will be a nice side arm complement to my eventual replacement digital SLR.

• Flughafen München is the cleanest and quietest airport that I’ve been through in recent years. It’s a striking contrast (and a bit eerie) to sprawling complexes like LAX or or LHR.
• Corporate rivalries play out in interesting ways. Just after the giant BMW grille in the baggage claim, there’s an Audi S5 on display right by the exit and enormous Audi banners in the outdoor square of the airport. Seems like a bold move given that Munich is BMW’s world headquarters.
• Bread is generally very good in Germany. I would eat brötchen all the time if I could get something comparable here in California.
• There’s nothing like the sense of déjà vu that you get when you return to a city that you were last in years earlier. In my case, strolling down Kaufingerstraße and ending up in Marienplatz brought back a flood of memories from a trip to Munich a decade ago.
• The street cars in Munich are Prius-sneaking-up-on-pedestrians quiet. The N-Judah that runs by my flat in San Francisco sounds like a stampeding herd of buffalo by comparison.
• London Heathrow, unlike the Internet, really is a series of tubes. Catching a connecting flight at LHR involves a series of moving walkways connecting a seemingly endless sprawl of terminals.
• The EmPower power outlets built in to many airplane seats seems rather customer unfriendly. Is there actually a good technical reason for not providing standard AC outlets in-seat instead?

I must be in Munich.