Park Review! Nopporo Forest Park

Disaster strikes! Unsurprisingly (considering I dropped it in the snow three times, on the beach once, and onto concrete more than once) my camera is dying in fits and starts. Most of the time now when I turn it on I'm faced with a black void, which is also what I get when I take photos and although I could, y'know, "make lemonade" and turn my blog into a 365 project about "null", it's a pretty big pain in the ass.

The first time it happened was when Yuki and I drove out to Nopporo Forest Park - home of the Hokkaido Historical Village (which we didn't check out) and the Hokkaido Centennial Memorial Tower (which we did).

The Centennial Memorial tower is very tall, and since it's located far to the East of Sapporo, where there's nothing quite as tall you often notice it when you're looking across the city from other lookout points. Also the fact that it's shaped like a sinister, black, tapering spike makes it pretty eye catching too.

I've always wanted to visit the tower (which, seriously, would make a great villain's lair in almost any vaguely "dark" genre), and while we could only climb to the low observation window, it still gives you a great view of the city with the mountains in the background.

These are the photos that I took before my camera succumbed to... the darkness:




Like that first one? It's all about the juxtaposition of the light and shadow, presence and absence and...

Man, I hope my camera heals itself soon.