In the red land of Kochia!

On the 17th of last month (October) I had the chance to take a day off from my super packed schedule as I was done with a series of exams. So me and my friends decided to visit the Hitachi Seaside Park again. If you have seen my post of tulip and Nemophilia then you already know that the park is a really beautiful place and a great show of nature is always waiting for you out there! This time we went to explore the red land of Kochia, very cute shrubs!
Luckily the weather was really beautiful that day with azure sky and little chilly wind of early autumn.
This is actually a very rare piece of beauty which you can hardly see in any other parts of Japan.  I had been waiting to see this beauty for long, so I was super excited!
So we arrived there before afternoon and when we entered the park we were totally blown away by the beautiful red carpet created with Kochias. Those of you who do not know Kochia from before, they are roundish shrubs, look like a big egg on earth! They are born green and when the autumn arrives they start changing colors to magenta-red. They are very cute and you will feel like cuddling them but when you touch them they would not feel that soft :p
There were also Cosmos and lovely pampas grass (^-^). We walked around the park in afternoon, had ice creams and light meal, watched a dramatic sunset and returned happily while cherishing the day!
I will be sharing two pictures from the day though I have some hundreds of pictures in my camera but do not have them all in my pc right now. Hope you like them! :D

Beautiful Kochia!

Sunset at the red land

Believe in yourself and make a change

How many times does someone ask this question to himself/ herself?
What are we?
If you just forget about the differences among all the people around world and think of everyone as a simple human being then we are nothing but a macro piece of 7.117 billion people! Isn't that amazing? How small and less important does it feel?
These billions of people are all striving for their own existence. Some might not have the tiny drop of water to live and they are just happy to find themselves alive the next day. Some might be living in a country which is going through war and passing each moment with the uncertainty of life. On the other hand some privileged people (like many of us who are passing time on internet now) are just thinking about why can't they have proper sleep at night or why the dinner tasted awful last night....
Yeah, life is different for all individuals and we gotta accept this. We cannot change the fate of every unprivileged one in this world. But we can at least try to help them from our own position. If you and I stop thinking rationally and be struck by the cruelty life brings to those helpless people it won't help a bit. Believe me you're making the situation worse.
Stop for a while, think about yourself, your situation, your ability, what you can do now....and what you can do for them. You spread your power among ten and those ten will take it to hundreds and millions and billions.
You gotta believe in yourself and you have to find out what's in yourself. It's good to look at others and find inspiration but that often tends to depress people by making them think that they can't do what those successful people did. Surely not everyone is blessed with the same abilities.
But everyone is UNIQUE! You are what you are and no one else can be you. Isn't this amazing enough to believe in yourself? So wake up for your sake and for those who need you and you can make a change for sure :)

Life is all about...

What this life is all about?

A question probably you shouldn't try asking yourself.
If you're feeling vulnerable then you might wanna avoid this question.... that's what I tell myself.

But damn me...most of the days I end up thinking, I'm losing one more day of my youth and what am I actually doing? Am I doing what I am supposed to do? Am I in the right path or I am deviating too much?
But again I think I don't even know what's gonna happen to me the very next moment...specially when those huge earthquakes attack and I'm alone in my tiny room I feel is this moment worth living for? Am I thinking too much?

May be I am thinking too much about myself which I shouldn't definitely do...I can see there are so many people who are living in the worst situation in this world. They have a 'life' and I have a 'life'. They are fighting every moment to survive in this cruel world and at least I know I am able to live by my own.
And I hate the fact that some people have to admit their lives just because they are not born as a fortunate one in this society, like the child whose father is a rickshaw puller or whose mother is a sex worker. Could he or she decide how his or her life would be?
We are not given the power to choose our family, we cannot decide how we will look, we cannot land from heaven to the country we want to live in, we don't decide to have a white or black skin either. Then why do we discriminate people depending on all these factors? Why do we make life so complicated?

Yeah..the more I think about these all the more I feel dizzy cause I know I cannot solve any of these problems alone. What I can do at best is educate and train myself to be a better person.

But then another me comes out who cries over the trifling matters of life. Yeah, I know there are hundreds and thousands of people living in this world. Everyone cares himself or herself the most...no one really gives a shit at what I am or how I am. But why would not I think about the tiny problems of my life? I have got only one life.....
Or how about finding some way to split up my life and share with as many lovely people as possible? I know I have one life and I want to enjoy it to it's best but I don't wanna grow up as a selfish, materialistic person....may be it's not worth crying over one personal problem...I will collect the smiles of hundreds and erase my pain with those...that's how I want my rest of the life to be...

After the storm

After the storm, a photo by brishti 雨 (busy) on Flickr.

The typhoon just passed over our area yesterday and the weather had been super dramatic for those two days. There was heavy shower and gusty winds. But the sun was pretty desperate to come out and play with the clouds, so even after heavy pouring of rain there was golden sunbeams lighting up the surroundings.
So yesterday I got to see one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life. No, the viewpoint wasn't any special place, I watched the clouds playing from my veranda. At first they were some playful white and grey clouds. And gradually they caught colors. At first light golden, then yellow golden, orange, red, then the grey clouds took over. But after few moments the whole sky was a playground of colors! It was such an amazing experience. It was so beautiful that I wanted to share with someone....but I was watching alone while the cool breeze touched my face, my hair leaving a heavenly feeling.... May be sometimes it's worth watching alone...at least suddenly I felt that I am really lucky to devour this beauty....

Hope you liked this image :) I have lots of other images, will try to add few of them later!

Summer of '13

I am writing new post after pretty long time. This year is just terrible..don't know why there are just too many things to do. Anyway, it's summer here, actually almost the end of summer. I know some people absolutely love summer, specially those who live in the cold countries. But summer in Japan is horrible, simply HORRIBLE! The hot and humid weather of August turns everyone mad -_- Usually I go back home every summer but this year I couldn't due to my graduation thesis and stuffs. So I had decided to enjoy every bit of it! If you can't escape then you embrace! :D
We had a terrible joint seminar where all of us were literally killed with questions for 1hour! So we were super exhausted and me and 3 of my friends went to explore Lake Kawaguchi! It is situated at Yamanashi prefecture, supposed to be 2.5hrs drive from our place but it took us 4hrs lol!
There are 5 lakes, and the tourist buses offer packages where they stop at each lake area for a while. But we went by car and out destination was Lake Kawaguchi. This is the place from where Mount Fuji can be viewed most beautifully. But apparently during that there was too much mist and cloud, so even though we visited in a super sunny day Mount Fuji didn't come out...except for the few seconds we got to see it very lightly. But anyway, the place is really beautiful and very relaxing. I will be posting few of my fav pictures from the day trip! Hope you enjoy! :)

Sunflowers by the lakeside

Sunflowers from different perspective

Summer flowers and lake Kawaguchi

Lavender season was over but still it was pretty beautiful 

This was one of the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen!

After the sunset it looked so peaceful!

Even though we could not see Mount Fuji that well but it was a very fun trip and an eventful day! We enjoyed the speed boat ride a loooot! And planning to visit the place again during fall! Hope we can see the graceful Fuji that time! :)

Tulips Festival at Hitachi Seaside Park

I love flowers, I love to take flower photos. So I always try to take photos whenever some special seasonal flowers are in bloom.
Today I'm gonna write about tulips. Tulips are one of the most cutest and colorful flowers and who doesn't love them? The first time I had visited any tulip garden was on 2010 and the place was Showa Memorial Park, Tokyo. We went there on my birthday, but it was already May and the tulips were almost dying. Then I couldn't make it to tulip garden before this year.
This year I was totally desperate about going to see tulips. So I had been looking for nice tulip gardens since March and I found that there is a very beautiful park in Ibaraki which is called Hitachi Seaside Park. The park is really vast and the photos I saw on website were too alluring.
So I had finally made it to the Tulip Festival on April 29th! The place was so so beautiful that I can't express in words. I never knew that there are sooo many types of tulips! It was a great experience to visit such a beautiful place and I would recommend this to anyone living in Kanto region.
Here are some photos :)

I have lots of other pictures I want to post, but thought that would be too many..
Hope you liked the pictures! :)

Blue symphony

Where sky meets land, a photo by Ame 雨 on Flickr.

The day before yesterday I have been to Hitachi seaside park where Nemophilas are in full bloom now.
The park is really big and absolutely beautiful. It looked like there is no border between sky, land and sea! It was a complete blue world but that blue makes you happy :)

Cherry blossom (Sakura) in Japan this year

I had been thinking of writing about cherry blossom for long. But this year the cherry blossom stayed for the shortest time. It started twice earlier than expected, then the weather was really bad here in Tsukuba. It rained continually for days just when the sakura was in full bloom. I really wanted to go for hanami (see the flowers and eat, drink, have fun under sakura trees) this year but it seemed pretty impossible :-(

But I was desperate about taking some pictures of sakura this year since last year I couldn't do so. I went for a walk in a park nearby university and took some photos. But there were not a lot of sakura tress, so I wasn't fully satisfied.

Cherry blossom at Matsumi Park, Tsukuba University

Cherry blossom at Matsumi Park, Tsukuba University 

Finally I went to Tokyo on a good weather day to meet my friend and visited Inokashira park for the first time. And it was absolutely beautiful there!!! So I will be sharing some pictures from that place today! Hope you'll like them :)

Boats and cherry blossom at Inokashira park

Boat ride

Sakura in full bloom

Heavenly flower shower

This is all for this year's cherry blossom. Hope to take some better pictures next year!

Guests for a while

Guests for a while, a photo by Ame 雨 on Flickr.

Dandelions are so adorable! I'm absolutely in love with them! But they stay just for a while and then I have to wait again one more year for them...
Anyway, yesterday I discovered that a bunch of dandelions just appeared and suddenly the field in front of my dormitory has turned white! But there wasn't enough light yesterday..so some snaps today. Ain't they cute? :)

Spring harmony brought by Tulips!

Spring harmony, a photo by Ame 雨 on Flickr.

Tulips are in full bloom in Japan now! I'm dying to visit tulip garden but have to wait till coming Golden Week holidays and hope they wait for me too!
This one is my first tulips photo of this year. In front of Tsukuba Station few tulips have bloomed, so I couldn't resist taking some snaps!
I will upload more photos when I visit tulip garden :)

Plum festival at Mount Tsukuba (筑波山 梅祭り)

It's been a while since i wrote my blog since I had been really busy with my term final exam. So my exam just ended last friday and I was super exhausted..so I wanted to go out so much... >.<
It has become warmer now and spring flowers have started to bloom. At mount Tsukuba there is plum festival going on and I found that right now the flowers are in full bloom, so I decided to check out the place. I had been there in autumn and that was really really beautiful there! I will post the pictures later.
Since I love nature, flowers and photography, so this was a must visit place for me!
The weather was really nice today and after I reached there I found that the place is actually more beautiful than I imagined!!! It was just like a heaven, seriously! As far as you can see there are flowers and flowers...
So I'm gonna post some of my favorite photos here. Hope you will enjoy! ^^

Flower Festival at Ibaraki, Japan

いばらき 花フェスタに行って来ましたよ！(^.^)/
Today I have been to the yearly flower festival of Ibaraki with my friend which took place for this weekend. Actually we didn't know about that before. We went out to go to somewhere beautiful and a lady at information center of Tsukuba Station told us about this flower festival.
The exhibition was simply gorgeous and they had many events attached to it. They also held competition on flower art and the prize winners were absolutely awesome. The one I liked the most was like a canvas with real flower art, then the rainbow colored decoration and the third best to me was a blue rose bouquet. But it's really difficult to say which one was the best as all the designs were too beautiful and dreamy.
We attended an event where famous flower artists demonstrated how they make bridal flower bouquets and also stage decoration. And all of them were too good! So I'm gonna post the final photo of the event with three models holding designed bouquets and some of my favorite photos!

All about Jellyfish!

I love visiting aquariums. There are a number of nice aquariums in Japan, each with it's particular attractions. I have been to Shinagawa Aquarium, Sun shine city aquarium of Ikebukuro, Kasai Rinkai Aquarium in Tokyo. But recently I have been to Osaka's big aquarium and I absolutely loved it! The reason is, they had a lot of variety of jellyfishes which is my most favorite in aquariums ^.^
I took a number of photos there since it's my hobby, but I couldn't read all the descriptions for time limitation. So I have searched for their detailed description on web later and today I'm gonna share the pictures I took along with little description about them. Hope the jellyfish lovers will enjoy! ^o^

Let's start with Moon Jellyfish. This is one of the most commonly seen jellyfish in aquariums and is found in almost all oceans of the world. Scientific name of moon jelly or saucer jelly is Aurelia aurita.

Moon Jellyfish

Then let me introduce you to the cute and innocent Golden Jellyfish. They are totally harmless as they don't sting. There is Jellyfish Lake located in Eil Malk Island in Palau where there are plenty of them. Snorkeling in the lake along with the cute golden jellies is very famous.

Golden Jellyfish

Now it's turn of the gorgeous yellow jellyfish, named as Pacific Sea Nettle, scientific name Chrysaora fuscescens. Sea Nettles have 24 undulating maroon tentacles that may trail behind as far as 3.6 to 4.6m. They are pretty famous for displaying in aquariums for their vibrant colors and easy maintenance.

Pacific Sea Nettle

There was another special type of jellyfish, I haven't found much details about this type. Though it seems like white spotted jellyfish but I'm not quite sure about that. Anyways, I will put the picture.

And two more pictures of cute small jellies, I don't know their name, may be they are baby jellyfish.

So, that's all for today. If I find something interesting then I will post again :)

Valentines nails!

So today I have bought something I wanted to buy for long. That's a RED nail polish! yeah, it's valentines seasons and wanted to have something for my nails. And I had two tough weeks, so wanted to refresh myself with some new outlook.
I got the idea from youtube (Youtube is a great place to share ideas, isnt it? ^.^)
I used my pinkish golden and red nailpolish for this design. At first I put the base coat ant the golden nail polish on four fingers and red on one (you can choose to do it however you want). Then I took a band aid and cut a small piece from the tape portion. After that I folded the piece and cut a small heart out of it. And after sticking the hollow heart shaped tape on my nails I brushed them with opposite colors.
You can use masking tape instead of band aids as they are a bit too sticky. But if you use band aids then be sure to put it on your skin or clothes few times so that the stickiness is lessened to a certain level, otherwise the base coat might come off with the tape.
Here's the outcome!

I found this design very cute and easy to do on both hands. Cause usually if I paint on my nails with brush or dotting tools then I can't do this with my left hand, so my right hand looks weird >.<
here's the youtube link for you to undertand better : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA6nbPq4ths
Try it if you like :)

Childhood - You and Me

Childhood - You and Me, a photo by Ame 雨 on Flickr.

A caring father and his small kid is enjoying their time at Osaka aquarium :) the picture is a bit blurry but i find this moment very adorable...and i miss the moments with my dad terribly...