Shooting Digitals - Series 2

Tokyo is a very expensive city. I remember ordering ramen from a guy selling with his pushcart by the roadside, thinking that the guy should be selling cheap, and ended up paying over 20 Singa-bucks! That's a week's lunch allowance, with kopi change to spare! Anyways, one of the more prominent landmarks in Tokyo, Japan is the Tokyo Tower. Here's a brief excerpt from Wikipedia regarding this landmark:

Tokyo Tower (東京タワー, Tōkyō-tawā?) is a communications tower located in Shiba Park, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. At exactly 332.6 meters (1,091 ft), this orange and white lattice tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, the tallest artificial structure in Japan and is the 20th tallest tower in the world. Built in 1958, this Eiffel Tower-like structure supports an antenna that broadcasts television and radio signals for important Japanese media outlets such as NHK, TBS and Fuji TV. In recent years, the tower has also been instrumental in furthering Japan's push to switch from an analog signal to digital signal.

In addition to being a television and radio communications tower, Tokyo Tower doubles as a major Tokyo tourist site. Over 2.5 million people annually visit the tower's recreational Foot Town and two observations decks. Foot Town is a 4-story building located directly under the tower that houses several museums, restaurants and shops. Departing from here, guests can also visit the two observation decks. The 2-story Main Observatory is located at 150 meters (492 ft), while the smaller Special Observatory reaches a height of 250 meters (820 ft). (source: Wikipedia)

The second photo was taken from my room's minibar at the Holiday Inn Pudong (Shanghai). I was fascinated by the mix of colors in the menagerie of items, err, sinful and otherwise.



The last picture in this series was taken from a street in Taipei in which most of the food stalls has, for their specialty, stinky tofu on the menu. If you are wondering how "smelly" stinky tofu is, it scores high in my stink-o-meter. This is a stuff made for Fear Factor max edition. Below is a short write-up from Wikipedia on stinky tofu:



Stinky tofu is a form of fermented tofu, which, as the name suggests, has a strong odor. It is a popular snack in East and Southeast Asia, particularly Taiwan, Indonesia, and China, where it is usually found at night markets or roadside stands, or as a side dish in lunch bars.

It is perhaps interesting to note that the words "stinky tofu" is a direct translation of the Mandarin term chou doufu. However, the Mandarin word chou does not have the same negative connotation as the English word "stinky". Chou therefore serves mainly as a factual descriptor and not a judgment on the virtues of the odor. Occasionally chou is translated as "fragrant", but this too imposes a "pleasant" or "flowery" judgment on the term, which does not accurately represent the food either. (source: Wikipedia)