Thursday Travels

Thursday Travels @Exploring the World is a new photographic meme that highlights your favourite and best holiday pics.

One at a time.

Some easy to follow rules:

• Pick just ONE photo that shows something unique, unusual or quintessential about your travels.

• You can label it, write a story or do a travelogue piece about your photo if you so desire.

• These photos are about the place, the environment (man-made or natural), panoramas, macros - whatever captures your eye.

• All photos must be your own.

• NO selfies or family pics please.

We're all about the scenery at Thursday Travels!

Cherry blossoms in Hirosaki Park, Aomori, Japan

#ThursdayTravels

Hirosaki Park and Castle, Japan

I studied Japanese for 2 years in high school.
I loved it.
For 35 yrs I have been promising myself I would go to Japan & see the things I’ve only ever dreamt about & experience their amazing culture first hand.
I’m finally living the dream!

Part of the dream was to join in the cherry blossom fever that sweeps Japan every spring.
We thought our timing may have been off as the blossoms bloomed early this year.
But on the northern tip of Honshu we found the last of the blossoms.
Hirosaki Park and Castle is near the port town of Aomori.
It was a long train trek from Tokyo, but worth every mile.

Hirosaki Park has over 2500 cherry trees. The park consists of blossom-covered ponds (yes, we hired a boat for an hour to row through the petals), red bridges, tunnels of trees, a three-storey castle keep and night-time illuminations.

Thousands of people joined us in wandering around the cherry trees, enjoying picnics underneath them and taking many, many photos. The blossoms were outstanding & thanks to a lazy breeze, I regularly experienced blossom bathing as the petals fluttered all around us.
It was magic!

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot.

Barangaroo Point - Open for Business

Barangaroo Point is a new open space, that according to it's website is

"A spectacular new place for Sydney, this six hectare waterfront headland park includes two coves, a continuous naturalistic sandstone foreshore, 75,000 native plants and an internal cultural space landscaped into the headland."

Panorama of Nawi Cove

Mr Seasons enjoying clambering over the sandstone blocks.

Walking towards Stargazer Lawn

Burrawang Steps

View of the Harbour Bridge from Millers Point

The old control tower is now a feature of the new reserve.

Lots of lovely green space and open views.

Girra Girra Steps looking down to Nawi Cove

Waranara Reserve

The Cutaway

The Cutaway is an exhibition and cultural space.

The existing sandstone wall has been lit up dramatically as well as utilising the natural light.

The first exhibition is by Brook Andrew called, Stone: The Weight of History, the Mark of Time.

The four balloon sculptures are meant to act as a "breathing lung-like imaginative environment".

Sandstone detail

I can't wait to see how this space matures with time.

This post is part of Saturday Snapshot

Pirrama Park, Pyrmont

Pirrama Park, Pyrmont (formerly known as Pyrmont Point Park) won the 2010 Walter Burley Griffin Award for Urban Design. Formerly the site of the water police, the old wharf pylons have been incorporated into the new design. 

Pirrama means 'rocking stone' in the Gadigal language.

The headland is surrounded by Johnstons and Jones Bays.

Below are photos I took in May 2007.

The park has now been thoroughly landscaped and is regularly used for food and wine festivals and other local events. One of the main ones is the Mudgee Food and Wine Festival held in May every year.

Unbelievably, I've had something else planned for this weekend for the past 6 years!

I hope to finally attend the festival next year & to see the new work done on this lovely inner city park.

The "whale bone" walkway.

The harbour promenade featured a sculpture created by Jennifer Turpin & Michaelie Crawford. 

Tied to Tide (below) is an "aquatic instrument" with eight arms of recycled hardwood beams and red ladders that play "the winds, tides and waves to independently rise, fall, pivot and rotate."

According to my Top 10 Sydney, Tied to Tide is no. 10 in our Top 10 Public Art list.

The other 9 are:

1. Edge of the Trees (Museum of Sydney)

2. Almost Once (AGNSW)

3. Federation Pavilion (Centennial Park)

4. Veil of Trees (Botanic Gardens)

5. Magnolia and Palm (Botanic Gardens)

6. Dual Nature (Woolloomooloo Bay)

7. Wuganmagulya (Botanic Gardens)

8. Memory is Creation Without End (South Domain)

9. Tankstream (Pitt St Mall)

When I first moved to Sydney I used to get very confused about which headland ended up in which bay and how to get from one to the other. 

Pirrama Park is the green patch at the top of this map.

Off to the left is Johnston's Bay, which is spanned by the glorious ANZAC Bridge.

The Sydney Fish Markets take up the big grey patch of land in Blackwattle Bay circled by the Western Distributor (route 40) which is the official name of the road using the ANZAC Bridge.

Directly opposite the Fish Markets is Blackwattle Senior Secondary College where my eldest stepson goes to school.

Jones Bay is the little bay off to the right of Pirrama Park - Jones Bay Wharf juts out in the middle of it.

Keep heading around to the right and you end up in Darling Harbour.

This next map might give you an idea of just how many bays and coves line Sydney Harbour.

Pyrmont is found in the bottom left hand corner of this map.

We live in Balmain just across from Johnston's Bay. Our front verandah has a great view of Cockatoo Island & Woolwich.

Goat Island is the green spot under the words Port Jackson (near Balmain East).

Clark Island is further to the east off Darling Point (a much smaller dot of green).

And Shark Island is off Point Piper in the middle of the entrance to Rose Bay.

The entrance headlands into Port Jackson are imaginatively called North Head and South Head. The big one in the middle where Mosman and Taronga Zoo are is called...you guessed it...Middle Head!

North Harbour takes you into Manly & Middle Harbour takes you under the Spit Bridge (route 10).

Sydney Harbour takes you under the Sydney Harbour Bridge (between Dawes Point & Kirribilli)!

Saturday Snapshot 29th September 2012

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

The rules are simple:

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

Ballast Point Park, Balmain was officially opened July 2009.

It's a park created out of an old Caltex refinery on one of the peninsulas

that juts out into Sydney Harbour.

The design reflects (and uses) it's Aboriginal history and it's working history

to create a beautiful park for walking, picnicking, playing, fishing,

watching the NYE fireworks and nature at play.

Over the years I have captured this park in various moods, including the Spring blooms from a couple of weeks ago.

Below is sunset on opening night July 2009.

A family gathering a few months later (note the new seedlings).

2 years later and the trees and shrubs have started to bulk up.

You can also see how they've used bits and pieces from the old refinery to make the walls.

And finally, 2 recent pics from August 2012 (below)