News:

Whoah, just checked my message centre and saw a bunch of new messages all focused on Fissure
So I go to the deviation and behold, a Daily Deviation!
featured Fissure!
100000000000 thanks to him for his most kind support and the feature!
I really did not expect this.

<3
And again, a billion thanks to all, especially

-Alexei

News:

Why hello there, for those of you that still remember me; I am back
My trip to Japan is sadly over but it was amazing and left many deep impressions. The following will be a summary of where I went and what I saw, for those interested in Japan, or very bored, its worth a look at I hope It’s a long read so go get a tea and some pie.

My trip started at the Zurich airport early morning on Friday the 25th of March. Instead of taking a direct flight with SWISS, we took one with a stop at Frankfurt, which cut the price by 60% at least. Luckily Lufthansa messed up abit and sold our ticket (seat numbers) to others, so we were transferred to Business class and enjoyed a very pleasant, if very long flight to Osaka. We went to the Sumo wrestling tournaments, and it was rather more impressive than you can imagine. On TV sumo looks alright, in real life it’s much more exotic and fascinating.
One big surprise that awaited my on the very first day was in the bathroom. After finishing up and noticing ho very technical and modern the toilet looked, I struggled to find the button where to flush the thing. On impulse I pressed something that looked likely, and was rewarded with a rather highly pressurized jet of water that shot up my corn hole.
Now I heard about these water jet toilets, but trust me that’s the last thing you expect and want at a moment like that. So yes, I was raped by a toilet seat and its water. *the….horror…
I stayed away from that button for the rest of the trip. Good old toilet paper suited me fine.

We then travelled to the island of Miyajima, making a half day stop at Hiroshima. The peace museum and park left a deep sense of wonder and horror, the first city to fall victim to the atomic bomb is thriving today, but one can see how the people still remember the horrific past.

Miyajima was amazing, from the great crimson Torri gates that enshrined the entire island (no one is permitted to be born, or die in Miyajima), to the many temples and shrines, and to the thousands of half wild deer roaming the island. Word of advice for those planning to visit: do not tempt the deer with food! Seriously, don’t! We became surrounded by a whole pack and only managed to get them away from us (they were getting aggressive and started to head butt) by throwing a pack of chips to the floor, and running like the wind.

After a few days in Miyajima which were spent exploring the island and climbing to the top of it, we departed to Kyoto. We spent around 4 days in Kyoto and around that time the first of the cherry blossoms were starting to bloom. Kyoto was explored quite thoroughly by us and we saw almost all the major temples and shrines. The imperial palace with its nightingale floors (floors specially designed to chirp like birds when stepped on, thanks to a system of nails gently rubbing each other, and thus warning of intruders) and its magnificent garden was a very impressive work of architecture.

From Kyoto we went to Nara, a former Capital of Japan (as was Kyoto, before Tokyo became the capital). Nara was much smaller than expected, but home to the worlds largest statue of Buddha, and the largest wooden structure that houses this huge bronze behemoth.
It was astounding how large this statue was and the temple built around it was equally impressive. Nara, as Miyajima, was home to hundreds of free roaming deer, but I may say that these were rather less wild than the ones on the island, and not as aggressively focused on any food that might, or might not be on your person at that time.

We left Kyoto and travelled to Hakone. Part of a system of little towns that surround a dormant volcano, we explored the area and went up the volcano, to get an amazing glimpse and wonderful view of Japans most known mountain, the world famous Mt.Fuji, a dormant Volcano of almost 4000 metres height. This volcano is a perfect conical shape and with its snow capped peak, a definite symbol of Japan.

Eating some eggs boiled in the hot ash of the volcano (black shells ftw) that are supposedly able to give you 7 years of more life, we went to the water park called Jukeiso. Now being in Japan, we were no strangers to the public baths (hot), but what we saw and did at this park was just crazy. Ever wanted to take a bath in wine? Or how about green tea, sake, or even hot chocolate? Well, been there, done that ;D. That’s right, public baths filled with sake, something I didn’t even think feasible. Also we had our dead skin nibbled of our legs in a pool of odd fish, and enjoyed a pool of salty water ala dead see, with many fun floatings, and very burning wounds. The Cherry blossoms were in full bloom and it looked amazing, whole gardens filled with white trees.

The train took us from Hakone to the heart of modern Japan, Tokyo. Now I’ve been to many big cities like New York, Moscow, or London. But Tokyo was something else. From the top of the Tokyo tower (a structure inspired by the Eifel tower, just taller) Tokyo spread out in each direction as far as the eye could see. It was gigantic. While not as impressive in old structures and temples as Kyoto was, Tokyo impressed more with its modern image, and busy atmosphere. From the Electronic town (heaven for electronic freaks like me) to the Imperial garden with more than a thousand specially planted pine trees, with each one receiving daily care from an army of gardeners.

From the tops of high buildings, Fuji was visible and cast a definite “Japanese” feel to the whole vista.
We briefly visited Nikko. Now we were very notorious with checking the weather reports, and on that day it promised fine weather with 15-20 degrees.
So confidently I put on a light t-shirt, and for major emergencies took a light sweater. (Come one, 15 degrees! What’s the worst that could happen right?)
Well when we arrived my eyes nearly popped out of my head. It was snowing.
Yes, snowing, and not just some light snow, I’m talking full on snow storm/blizzard like u get in the deepest winter night here in Switzerland. This was already the 1st of April; I guess nature had its little joke on us. Well apart from the biting cold which felt like a slap to the face, it was very beautiful and the 90 meter waterfall and the nearby snow covered monkeys were a great sight well worth seeing. Warm sake helped get the worst of the cold out.

We also visited Kamakura, and hiked more than 10km through the local forest and on the “great Buddha hiking trail”. This brought us to a park housing the 2nd largest Buddha statue in the world. This one was standing out in the open as natural disasters destroyed the temple that used to house it. In this park we saw some things which I couldn’t explain.
Trees that looked very dead, with gaping holes, and hollow rotted cores, literally standing on a few cm oh semi circular tree bark, but they were very alive, and were producing beautiful lush cherry blossoms.
There were large holes in the trees that you could see right through, and it was attached to the floor on a C shaped piece of bark, but it was blooming, very amazing and somehow creepy.
Exhausted we took the sort was left and saw the Pacific ocean, and very tiredly travelled back to Tokyo.

Our trip drawing to a close we spent the last day in Tokyo and enjoyed it to the fullest.
In the night while we were watching TV there was even a small earthquake. Nothing spectacular and it felt no stronger than if someone shook my bed abit, it was still cool and a little adrenaline inspiring. I can happily say I experienced a lot that Japan has to offer, even a quake ^^.

The trip back was something else though. We woke up at 6.am local time (which was around 10p.m the previous day in Swiss time, 8 hours time difference.) A 2 hour train ride to the Narita Airport followed, and a very long and insomnia inducing flight back to Hamburg. And then the final short trip Back to Zurich.
We arrived in Lucerne at around 9pm and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. According to my internal clock it was 5 am Japanese time, and I couldn’t go to sleep. So I spent the whole night awake watching movies. In the morning I was supremely exhausted, but look there! The sun rose, and again I couldn’t go to sleep because of that. By evening I went around 47 hours with no sleep, after an exhausting flight.
I finally fell asleep and woke up feeling very refreshed and almost completely adjusted to the local time.
Almost. I still feel a bit wobbly.

All in all Japan was supremely beautiful. The food was just strange. Half the time I had no idea what I was eating, or even which kingdom of life forms it belonged too. But it was very interesting and a fine gastronomical experience. We experienced the tea ceremony (my legs were dead by the end of it) and the people were nicer than in any other place I’ve been. Such warm hospitality and desire to help out was very touching.
The public baths also needed a lot of getting used to as jumping in to fast guarantees burns.
I got a new camera (Eos 40D) and lots of equipment for it, including a extra 55-250mm lens for an amazing price, and was even attacked by deer and experienced an earthquake.
From the ground zero of the atomic blast, to the calm tranquillity of the forest in Kamakura, I enjoyed every second and will dearly miss this great country, and it fascinating culture.

That said its also good to be home. As one can only take so much memories and impressions without his/her brain undergoing gravitational collapse. Now I can star sorting my photos (more than 1500) and making more art.

New pieces are already on their way, keep your eyes open.

Bets wishes and a hearty “Arigato” if you read all of this.

-Alexei

News:

ima going to japan next friday!
2 weeks long holiday in the land of the rising sun, should be fun and ill eb bale to develop som emore photographic skills ( i hope )

Out itinerary includes: Tokio, Osaka, Hiroshima, Myajima, and some other places whose names are to complex to remember.

Ill be more or less withotu Internets for that period so messages and notes cant be answered untill i return.

My plane leaves friday morning so my last day here will be Thursday, and im comign back on the 5th of april.

If any of you peeps live in the places i mentioned then idbe cool to meet up for a drink.

Greets
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[link] !!!

Organic molecules have been found, the rest is inevitable
I shotgun front row seat on first spaceship outta here!

-TND

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[link]

I call to your attention the planet, you can see his attempts to hide the craacked red part and lava flows

The right part is easily recognizable.
And the smaller moon is one of the protoplanets on the left side of my original artwork.

This is just unbelievable. He deliberately ripped, and tried to hide it.
People like this don't deserve to be called artists, just petty criminals.

UPDATE:

[link]
this has elements of ad infinitum too

it seems he used parts and pieces in several of his works..

News:



TND is back in business, almost no injuries either!




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HEya peeps
Im gone for the neext week, skiing vacations.
See yall soon



[link] = LOL