Shining All Over The Roaring Lion at Tel Hai

I know , you’ll find it hard to believe, but 90 years ago there were still wars going on in peaceful Israel. In those days lived people who had actually believed that it is good (!) to die for your country!! that if you do , you’d might become a saint and go to heaven and will have there 70 virgin girls!!!

isn’t it ridiculous?

I think it is and I wish these days had had passed and would have never returned, because I love my life, and I don't want them to be in danger because of some  arrogant, coward, greedy fuckers.

The story about The Battle Of Tel Hai and The Myth Of Joseph Trumpeldor has been pumped into our young minds, since we were at kindergarten, and might have something to do with the fact that people in Israel, still think its hip to die for their country.

Lately, there were some doubts, suggesting that, Trumpeldor (who never spoke Hebrew or English)instead of saying "it is good to die for one's country", actually blurted out a Russian curse. Other swear they can hear him say “I buried Paul”

Anyway, wars are bad, O.K?!

Shining all over Mt. Fuji

When we thought about the shining protocol we never included any natural phenomenon. nevertheless, Mt. Fuji is more than just a mountain. This is one of the most famous symbols of Japan. It was considered sacred and was off-limits to women until the Meiji Era, Fuji-San is one of the biggest achievements in my shining career.

Shining all over Osaka - Tsūtenkaku Tower, Osaka Castle and Billiken

 Osaka was fun! Unfortunately we only had 2 days there, but I could really pick up a vibe which is much wilder and fun than in Tokyo. 

In the 1st picture you can see behind me the Tsūtenkaku Tower which is located in the Shinsekai district. Here we also took the 2nd Picture near the sweet figure of Billiken.

The 3rd one is a proper Shining, behind me is the Osaka castle, built by the asshole Samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who murdered a bit too much for my taste and is now remembered as a great Japanese leader. He also managed to apear in some PC and Video games.

Shining all over Hiroshima - Peace Memorial Park

The A-Bomb Dome.

In retrospect, shining all over Hiroshima was like shining all over the Holocaust Denkmal in Berlin.  I did these photos before entering the peace museum, so i actually wasn't so much aware of the magnitude of this event.  Walking through the museum was pretty shocking, I wasn't so much shocked from the description of the bomb and its aftermath as I was from the American documents issued prior to the bombing. Basically the Americans wanted to test two new models of bombs and they didn't really give a fuck about who they've dropped it on. Knowing a bit of history, maybe being shocked from this fact is pretty naive.

This whole area near where the bomb dropped is now called Peace Memorial Park.

ground zero

children's peace memorial

 Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

Shining All Over Tokyo Part II - Shinjuku and Godzilla

Shining all over Tokyo Part II was a hard post to produce, the reason for that is I really really hated doing sight seeing in Tokyo. Even though I found some great things in Tokyo like crazy record shops, amazing food and above all some really beautiful people, every time i had to go out to face the streets I became stressed. I was constantly blinded by the neon lights and every machine, commercial or traffic lights spoke to me in a screechy high voice as I got near it. Add to all this that my wife is a really fast-walking person that was under a tight schedule, and you get a disaster. Nevertheless, i was thrilled to find this Godzilla statue and deep down in my heart i hoped it would come into life and consume this crazy city around me.  Who knows, maybe the people who made Godzilla felt at some point the same?

The next picture was taken in the Shinjuku station. I don't consider it to be a pretty Shining but its the world  busiest train station so it deserves to be shined upon.
Better and more optimistic shining post from Osaka and Hiroshima coming soon!

Shining all over Tokyo Part 1 - Hachikō and Shibuya Crossing

 This post im writing on behalf of my brother, who is now in Tokyo and is so busy with Teder Tokyo that he could neither find the time to find out what he was shining on, nor to write a post. But with a lot of luck he found this really nice statue of a dog and thanks to him I discovered a heartwarming Disney-style tale behind it.

Although animals have most times much bigger dicks than humans, animals are not dicks, nor assholes. Thats why we love them. 

Hachikō the dog was a specially nice dog, so nice they made a movie about him and erected a statue.

read about him. he is nicer than Hitler or Stalin or Bibi Netanyahu, he was a real pal.

The 2nd photo is from Shibuya junction, which we can see in most movies about Tokyo and is so full with people it was just cool to shine there.

Shining All Over The Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao

This one is from my third spanish tour, dates March 2012.

Bilbao is a beautiful city, and I tell you THIS BUILDING IS SHINING NATURALLY!

still I wanted to add my small contribution. to show I could make it shine without spending those billions of  $$$

It is not easy to take a good photo of this building. it has so many angles and shapes,and almost like the Taj Mahal, it worth looking both during sunset and during sunrise

about the art: art (except this blog) is boring, but inside Richard Serra's  sculptors, you can shout and scream, and listen to the amazing acoustic character of each item

Shining all over The Royal Pavilion in Brighton

Im happy to post this Shiny happy post after the depressing post of last week. This post captures everything that shining is supposed to be, we love life, we love touring the world and we love shining!

Brighton's Royal Pavilion was built by a king who built the place to look like the Taj Mahal and decorated it with chinese-like imitations. really tasteful your majesty!

Shining all over Sachsenhausen

I had my doubts about posting this as Shining. I thought it lacked the joy that all the other Shining earlier posts share. Honestly Sachsenhausen concentration camp is a dark gloomy place, and i really didnt felt im doing anything fun or funny. Another point that makes this place different from all the other shining locations is that it wasnt built to glorify some asshole's prick, on the contrary, it was built to make people disapear and to suffer.
While walking in the camp I started thinking about the suffering of man, today. while i was walking in a place where suffering happend 60 years ago, people were suffering all over the world, i specifically thought of the people in Syria and of the african kids that still every day have to go through their own modern day holocaust, but other places where people suffer are not so hard to find.
I hope one day we can see a more balanced world where suffering will only be a memory and people could take their Shining pictures over places that makes them feel they are lucky to have survived.