Actually probably more Akihabara. I used to dream of Akihabara. All those video games and manga shops... (drools)
And most of my friends share my obsession. My parents are resigned to it, except my dad who keeps insisting I'll grow out of it. Who knows, I may still. I hope not... Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Yeah, Akihabara is cool, but it's not my favorite area of Tokyo. That would be Tama.
It's my favorite mainly because I stayed there for a bit, and because it's an incredible city (very recent, very well laid out, lots of green space, but still the intensity and flavor of tokyo, plus an incredible arts complex).
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Houston and Kennedy Space Centers National Cemeteries Museums with old war machines (warhorses, as I think of them) like The National Air and Space Museum or our local Cavanaugh Flight Museum The National Archives. Most of the Washington DC Mall for that matter. The Park in which I was Married The pier at Imperial Beach, Ca. "Arnie's" at the USAF Academy Garden of the Gods Saylor Park, Co. Disneyland The Sidecar Pub in Houston The Curtain Club in Dallas Club Dada in Dallas Indian Trails Studio Anyplace in Toronto associated with Rush
I think that may be it... but don't hold me to it.
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I love all museums. Really! Even the cheesy ones like the Corvette museum in Bowling Green KY or wherever it is! <laughs>
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I find myself drawn to the world's biggest ball of twine, over and over again. I can't explain it.
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I still intend to one day approach the Dalai Lama at his home, on foot.
Beside that, there's a nice cafe my girlfriend told me about down the street, with wonderful cream cheese croissants...
Posts: 149 | Registered: Aug 2002
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The Holy Land. To walk in the same places Jesus once walked.
A company is doing a cruise that takes you to all the places Paul the Apostle visited, that would be awesome. Naturally it was out of my price range.
If they hadn't bulldozed it all down, I would have added New Zealand so I could visit the Shire.
As for this country - I've never been to the Grand Canyon, and I would love to take the kids there and see it for myself.
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TAK, I *love* the Garden of the Gods. It's one of my all time favorite places. Hmmm...gonna be in Denver next month -- I'll have to make time for it. Thanks for reminding me! I should see if I can make time to go to the Focus on the Family campus...I've never been and would like to at least see it.
For me, it would probably be NYC, Central Park, 5th Avenue. The Guggenhiem.
And the ultimate... Ireland. I'm hoping we'll be able to go within the next five years.
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I remember driving up-valley, the Napa Valley that is, when I was 11 or twelve. This was before the monster vineyards and wineries fowled the region, and the spring air was clear and crisp after a recent rain. Emerald hills of grass broken up by stands of oak, the mountains reaching to the sky. Natural rock faces, like Stag's Leap, jutted out daring men to climb them.
I had been reading The Hobbit, and seeing a small cave mouth in the side of a low central hill near Yountville I remembered the opening lines of that wonderful fairy tale, describing the Shire.
There are many hidden small natural shrines in the area as well. Soda canyon had some wonderful cascading streams. Lake Marie (another man-made lake in the area) has a wonderful moss covered boulder fall, huge house sized chunks of basalt. (Actually here's a trivia fact: the moon's surface is mainly basalt. Nasa got the basalt powder to test the moon rover from Napa.) I hiked from one side of the valley to the other in my youth.
Napa has always been the Shire for me. When I saw The Fellowship of the Ring I thought Wow! That's perfect. I knew. I have always lived in the Shire....
But big business decided to encroach. They have desecrated my shrine. They have stripped the oak forests and plowed them under for wine grapes. They have turned our little working class community into a bedroom community for the nouvea rich, consigning the local economy to seasonal tourism. Our property values soared. Most of my classmates have had to leave.
I remained silent while the wineries took over. I voted, but did not let my opinions be heard, and that was my mistake. In this day and age, you must speak up, or bow to the will of not necessarily the majority, but of the big money.
She still has her charm, though. I could do without all the vineyards (obviously), but there seems to be a move to return to horse husbandry in the area, it was the number one industry in the valley in the seventies. So let this be a warning--protect your shrines!
I also live in one of mine. And I did when I lived in the Foothills in South Carolina as well. I think it's important to choose to live someplace you love, if at all possible.
Sorry things haven't stayed the way you loved them, though.
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Actually, to stop being flippant and start sounding snotty, I've been everywhere. My mom worked for the airlines for five years, so we got to fly for free. Her mother and her sisters lived in Texas, so their method of family togetherness was to take trips, and I went with my mom a lot. If I got out of sorts and restless, she'd put me on a plane. All together, most places I'd heard of and never seen and always wanted to see got covered.
I need new dreams, now. Any suggestions?
I would mildly like to go to England, but I've never romanticized it. All the places I've romanticized I do still love, but I've been there. I don't think it counts as a shrine.
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I don't know that I have any particular "obsessions," per se, but to me the word "shrine" means places that have a sense of reverence to them. Places where I get a certain feeling that's hard to describe, but it's a powerful feeling.
Garland Ranch Regional Park (especially the part just across the river from my mom's house where the big bay laurel is)
Arlington National Cemetary
The stretch of CA Highway 46 just past the orchard west of Lost Hills.
quote:Places where I get a certain feeling that's hard to describe, but it's a powerful feeling.
Oh... for that (now not being flippant), the conference room in the history department of USU, the temple, and my mother's grave.
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I lived in MI for 13 years, and I loved it. My family bought a small log cabin on a small lake near Travers City, and for 7-8 of those years we went "up north" every chance we could. My Dad and I put siding up on the cottage ourselves, to prevent the logs from rotting away. I think I still have some splinters from that weekend, 18 years later! My Dad made a pine table, and all the cabinets, and two years ago he made a huge entertainment center. The lake has a triple echo, and I use to take my flute out there in the evenings and play for an hour or three, depending on how I felt that night. I remember swimming at night in a sea of stars, because the sky was so clear that you couldn't see where the sky left off and the water began. The stars were so bright, and the water so calm, that the stars were a perfect reflection in the water. I saw metor showers, and on one night the Arora Borialis, beyond the horizon. In the morning, the water would be warmer than the air, so a heavy veil of mist would be swirling on the lake as I woke. My alam clock would be where the sun. Depending on how I set my curtains, I could "set" it to hit my eyes anywhere from 5:45 am to 10 am....
I was going to take my fiance, Jenni (JenniK here on hatrack) to the cottage last summer when we were just dating, but I left my job with Cracker Barrel 2 weeks before we were to leave, so we had to pass on the trip. Thus year we were getting ready to be married (Oct 18th) so we didn't go. I can't wait to show her our lake, and play my flute for her with the triple echo...
The best view I have ever seen, or at least one of them, if from the top of Sleeping Bear Dune, on the shore of Lake Michigan. You can see MN from there, and 2 or three of the Great Lakes all at once. It is the largest free-standing sand dune in the world, and the view is breathtaking...
quote: If they hadn't bulldozed it all down, I would have added New Zealand so I could visit the Shire.
Do you mean the movie set or the national park? If you mean the movie set, they had a deal going in that they had to put everything back exactly as it was the way they found it, which they did.
If you mean the national park, I don't see how that is possible. I pray that none of the park was bulldozed as that would be an absolute crime.
In other words, can you elaborate on what you are saying, please? Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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A mile or so into the woods behind the house where I grew up there is a large field on a rise of land. In the center of this field is an enormously large elm tree, easily the largest I've ever seen. Surrounding the elm are 50 or so tiny little trees, all of them having trunks with the diameter of my thumb, and standing no more than three feet high. The tree is large enough that once you've climbed into it, it's possible in one spot to lay down and sleep without fear of falling out, and there are many, many comfortable seats at various heights. From them, you can see the lake glimmering in the sun, watch the patterns form as the wind blows across the waist high grass that fills the field, throw bits of your picnic lunch down to your dogs, think, and dream. In the summer there are grapes growing on vines not too far away, and in the autumn the apple trees yield the most absolutely perfectly tart, juicy apples that you've ever tasted. If you're brave enough you can drink from the stream that comes bubbling up from the ground at the far end of the field. It's where your town got their water back when it was first formed, supposedly, but you never quite worked up the nerve to try it.
That's my shrine, I suppose.
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For me, on my lifelong quest for the perfect chocolate mousse, there are only two shrines:
Jen's (pronounced Yen's) in Anchorage
And the French restaurant on the highway between Sequim and Port Angeles. I forget the name of it. They have chocolate mint mousse that is just incredible.
Oh, and an honorable mention is the Lavender Farm Cafe in Sequim. They have Chocolate 911 which is fantastic.
Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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I meant the set. I know the area is still there, but it won't be the same without the plantings, the fences, and everything else. I know most of the hobbit holes were just facings, but I would have still liked to walk through there when everything was intact.
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I want to go to the barns at Churchill Downs, or Belmont. Don't care much aboutthe tracks themselves,though it would be fun to walk on the track. I'm more at home in a barn anyway.
I'd also love to go to the Lippizzaner stable in Austria or Spain (can't remember which).
Kwea, we seriously need to hang out when you're in michigan. What lake was that,with the triple echo, by the way?
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The Mojave Desert. When I was ten, I wrote a story called "Survival in the Mojave Desert". Someday I will go there and see how big my imagination was.
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Walking to the top of my cul de sac. I odn't know why, but it's always been an amaing experience, like you're about to step into another world.
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Places where I grew up in Fairfax County Virginia are all bulldozed and gone to people, but in my memory they are still there as they were many years ago.
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quote:Columbus bakery in Syracuse NY. Best Italian bread in the world.
Okay Mr Scopatz, I live about 20 minutes from Syracuse and have never heard of this place. Please tell me where I can find it so I can verify the truthity of your claim .
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quote:French restaurant on the highway between Sequim and Port Angeles
Holy stars, I've been there!! While visiting my friend from Forks... small world.
And I forgot to mention le Mont Saint Michel! I've set a goal to visit every 5 years at least for the rest of my life. I got to hear a concert there by the monastery choir... echoing through the cavernous nave... ah! C'etait magnifique! Celestiel! Oui, ca c'est mon vrai amour.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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I was thinking about this thread the other day.
There is a railroad trestle on the road near Essex, New York, which I would see every time I drove from Vermont to the Adirondacks in my college years.
The graffiti on the trestle said:
"Smokey Loves you, Silver Fox."
I always wondered who Smokey and Silver Fox were, and I hope they never paint over that graffiti. I hope Smokey still loves Silver Fox, and always will. When I drove through about eight years ago, it was still there.
(crap, I'm getting old...)
[ September 06, 2003, 04:52 PM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Elizabeth - that reminds me of my favorite road graffitti of all time.
It's on I-90 about 20 miles east of Missoula on an overpass. It says "SVEN LOVES DANGERGIRL" You gotta love that.
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Annie, We have to get these people together.
I always thought it would be a great title for a story.
Which do you think is the girl, Silver Fox or Smokey? I think we are pretty sure with Sven and Dangergirl, although who can ever be sure of these things?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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The Great Smokie Mountains, which stretch from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Photo links: Gatlinburg_Sunrise, BeamsOverGatlinburg 1, BeamsOverGatlinburg 2, Fall sunrise The Smokies have a peace and tranquility that I've felt few times in my life. Especially at dawn, when the foggy peaks make it seem as if the Earth has just been created.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a two-lane highway that goes from Tennesee to Virginia along the Smokies and is my favorite scenic road.
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Morbo, My mountainous shrine is the Adirondack Park. I grew up there, in Lake Placid and the vicinity. When I take the turn off 87 North, and the terrain starts to get steep, I get a feeling of "home," even though I haven't lived there for almost twenty years.
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