pansan (that`s me)

Nipponbashi Festa

2007-03-24T19:31:00.000+09:00

This was my last photo opp before moving back to Australia. I accidentally went to the festival last year but because i was just meeting someone for lunch i didn't have my camera. I'm not sure what the festival is all about but there are lots of strange people, dressed like cartoon characters and young women dressed in maids outfits. The festival itself is just shit. They block of the street and there's a float about every 10mins that usually has about 3-5 people in it. The people in the crowd are much more interesting and thats where all my photos are from.

remember to click to see large photo

i think this is my favourite pic from the festival. the
50mm 1.8 is a great little head portrait lens on digital.

I'm not sure how old these girls were but they
were easily the favourites. Most of them work in
cosuplay maid bars in the area.

more maids

some more weird people

this guy seemed to be the pimp for one of the
girls in maid costume.

kimchi, kia and samsung

2007-03-15T15:10:00.000+09:00

Recently i went to Seoul, South Korea for the week. My visa in Japan was about to run out and I wasn't ready to go home yet so a quick flight to Seoul for the week sounded perfect. Flights from Japan to Seoul are dirt cheap ($200 AUD) and the flight takes about two hours. It took me an hour on the bus to get to the airport, 2hrs waiting around at the airport, 2hr flight then 90min on the bus to get to the hostel. So 6 1/2 hours messing around for a two hour flight.

The first thing i noticed when i arrived in Seoul was everyone was driving a Kia or Hyundai. Every car seemed to look the same. When i got of the airport bus near my hostel i couldn't believe how many police there was. Not friendly police, ones carrying riot gear and all looking very serious. I realised a few days later that my hostel was near the Japanese Embassy. Politically things aren't good between South Korea and Japan. Also people don't ride bicycles here. In Japan everywhere you go you have to dodge people on bicycles. It felt a bit strange actually sharing the sidewalk with pedestrians.

remember to click on the photo to see large

Gyeongbokgung Palace. Originally constructed in 1394 and was
the largest palace of the Joseon Dynasty.

the main gate of the palace. The architecture is similar to Japan
but the roof has a curve and the colours are much more vibrant.

inside the palace. I used the sb600 to illuminate the eve of the roof
to show the colours and artwork.

Sungnyemun Gate. apparently it used to close every night at 11pm
when the city had curfew. I also heard the walls and gate were to protect
the city from South Korean Tigers. Sounds like BS to me.

the changing of the guards ceremony. This happens at various
sightseeing spots around the city a few times a day.

food in Seoul is awesome. Very similar to Japanese
food but everything is very spicy. Kimchi is the staple food, it's
made from pickled cabbage and is really spicy. top left is bibimap, beef wrapped
in lettuce leaves (one of my favourites), middle left, korean style bbq ribs. really really
spicy but great. other pics are just spices and stuff from local markets.

there's military everywhere in seoul. apparently Louis
Vuitton is army issue here. You can buy a genuine handbag and
genuine sorny MP3 player at the markets for a few dollars.

I actually went to the theatre. I think it might
be the first time i've even been to a theatre. I didn't run out and
buy a tweed jacket after but i did enjoy it. It was a performance of traditional
Korean dance and music. Really amazing and probably the highlight of the trip.

i quickly found out that when it comes to shopping women are just
nasty in every country. They have really sharp elbows and get super powers
to push you out of the way. all this to buy some shitty fake brand name bag
that is one of thousands at the stall. but you have to love the sellers as you
walk past "for you special price, today only"

the Blue House, Seouls version of the white house. This guard platform was
very high tech. He had three mirrors around him.

just some traditional dress from the national museum

In south Korea a lot of people have heated floors. my hostel had
them and they're awesome. This is at one of the palaces so it's old skool. basically
make a fire under your house and stay warm.

ume part II

2007-02-21T16:08:00.000+09:00

Otaku in Japanese pretty much means nerd and is used to describe people that go overboard with a hobby. Often people that sit indoors all day reading manga are called otaku. In Japan there's also camera otaka (which mika now calls me). They have all the greatest gear, usually at least two bodies and lenses that cost as much as most peoples cars. so i was at the castle still and noticed a big crowd of people with cameras so thought i'd better have a look. Not sure if they were a camera club but there was about 20 people set up taking photos of some type of bird on an ume branch. Looked fun so i unpacked my tripod and got out my 70-200 and teleconverter and joined in.

Here's where everyone was setup. there was about 20 photogs
and their groupies. most of them had the camo for their camera and lenses
and weird little seats that only a japanese person could sit on.

after people got bored i got a shot of my setup. nikon d80 with
sigma 70-200 and new velbon carbon fibre tripod. It's nice to use
a tripod that i can use at eye level.

Here's the fake ume branch they were putting small worms and
seeds on to attract the birds. they would put it on the flowers then
go back and hide behind the bushes and wait for about 15mins for
the bird to come back. get a few shots and do it all over again.

here's a few of my shots. It was really difficult
to get the exposure right and off course it all happens withing
a couple of seconds so easy to miss the photo opp. sorry don't know
what type of bird it is.

this was my favourite out of the keepers. again
the exposure is a bit screwy but it was midday and too
many others shooting the same thing to use my flash.

just a few more bird shots from around the park

Osaka Castle Ume (plum blossom)

2007-02-21T15:36:00.000+09:00

Osaka castle is one of the more famous places in Japan to see Ume (japanese plum blossoms). there's a huge park at the bottom of the castle with heaps of different types of trees that will be in bloom over the next few weeks. Usually this time of year any parks that have any ume are full of old retired men with their thousands of dollars of camera gear and foreigners like me doing the sightseeing thing. I'm not really interested in flowers so not sure why i've been to so many places lately to see them but thought it was a good opportunity to get some different pictures of osaka castle.

I got to the castle around 8am and was greeted by an old man dressed as santa taking pictures of himself in front of the ume. I was suprised that there was only a few people there but was happy because i could take my time to get some pictures before the clouds came over.

santa having some "me" time away from mrs clause.

Osaka castle with some white ume in the foreground. I used
an sb600 for some foreground fill flash to get the nice blue sky
properly exposed. As they say a flash is best used in bright daylight.

It was strange to see an old man using a disposable camera.
It seems everyone over here owns an SLR camera. the hat is
pretty cool though. looks like a member of the MG club.

While i was walking around the lady on the right started talking
to me and asking question about where i'm from etc. After that she took
me for a walk and introduced me to the guy on the right. He's quite a
famous painter in Osaka and he showed me his photos with some famous
TV celebs for tv shows he's been on. here's a webpage with some of his
work http://www.geocities.jp/kumabati87/newpage13.htm. One thing
i'm really going to miss is how friendly old people are in Japan. sadly young
people seem to be as rude here as everywhere else in the world.

i think this bird is called meguro or something. Mika has told me a
few times but if it's not a pidgeon or seagull i can't remember the name.
anyway i like the colours and contrast here.

the castle from a different angle with pink
ume in the foreground.

some white ume but on a really cool tree with all the
branches draping to the ground.

this is how busy it was by about 11am. Photographers and
old women everywhere. Because i have a nikon camera often
old men will come and talk to me about cameras and point me in the
direction of good photo spots. It seems over here anyway not everyone
has switched to canon and a lot of the old guys are still shooting 35mm
or medium format.

Awaji daffodil farm

2007-02-16T18:35:00.000+09:00

We went to Awaji Island with Mika's parents last weekend to visit a daffodil farm. It was the first time i've been to awaji and the famous bridge. i think it's the longest suspension bridge in the world or something. I couldn't believe how busy it was. there were traffic jams all the way to the park and once we got there we had to park a few km's away and catch a shuttle bus the rest of the way. I'm not really into flowers but it was a nice scene next to the ocean.

me and mika posing at the bridge. were on awaji side here with kobe
on the right.

the path leading to down to the entrance

posing in front of the flowers.

the ume were in bloom also. they're about 2 weeks early
this year.

two photos blended for shadows and
highlights

took this while waiting for the bus. couldn't resist
taking a photo with the yellow and blue sky.

new lense :-)

2007-02-08T21:43:00.000+09:00

i posted just after xmas that i bought a new lense. I got a new nikon af 80-200 f2.8dn. It is supposed to be a great lense but it wasn't so i took it back and got a different one. I ended up with a sigma 70-200 APO EX DG HSM MACRO (i love these long names). I love this lense and can't get it of my camera. I haven't really been anywhere since getting it to really test it out but i can't wait to get back to australia to try it out on some motocross and surfing. anyway here's a few pics showing what it can do. CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO VIEW LARGE SIZE.

the grand opening and yes cathy that's the michelin
man beanie.

the first shot with the lense. mika is holding one of our
souveniers from Hokkaido last summer

a seagull near our house.

and another one. I'd never tried to take photos of birds in flight
before and it's a lot more difficult than i thought. I was pretty
happy with the few keepers i got.

shinkansen (bullet train) at sunset between osaka and kyoto.

some type of bird in the park near our house.

in the park again. I really like how the lense renders
the OOF areas. It has much better bokeh than some would
lead you to believe.

same park. just playing around with the RAW abilities, shadows
highlights etc.

Mika near our house on a cold winter morning. i was a bit excited
to try out my new lense the next morning, so up early on sunday, no
time for hotcakes. I was told this lense is warmer than the nikon but
i've found quite the opposite and the contrast is just as good if not better
than the 80-200.

setsubun

2007-02-08T20:54:00.000+09:00

some time in the past the Japanese celebrated the start of spring as the start of the new year. So before the end of winter they hold a festival to ward of all the evil spirits to start the new year clean. We went to a small festival at Yamazaki just north of Osaka. There's people dressed up as the devil and people chase them away. It seems the highlight of the festival is when the 7 gods throw mame (beans) into the crowd. If you manage to catch one you start the year with good luck. Most people get a bit desperate and things get a bit rough. Some people even resort to picking them up of the ground. I copped a few elbows and flying hands but it was all a good laugh.

even the animals getting in on the act. One thing i've noticed in
Japan is if there's a cute dog anywhere, women of all ages go nuts. The
dogs must get really pissed.

the 7 gods. well it would be if i got them all in the shot. so just
imagine there's another 3.

this is after the festival. The good people
had chased him out of the temple.

people were using everything to try and
catch the beans. You can see in the top left the
woman throwing the packets of beans.

just a wider shot of everyone using jumpers, jackets, hats,
bags, beanies and children to catch the beans.

just the entrance to the temple.

Tennoji

2007-02-08T17:35:00.000+09:00

the weather had been pretty shitty for about a week so on the next fine day i decided to go for a wander around Tennoji. It's known as the bad part of osaka. lots of rubbish, homeless people, crime and of course with crime you get the underworld. I kind of like it. It has an old feel and there's a great walking course that takes about half a day, covering lots of temples, shrines and some old fashioned paved streets. I got miserably lost but luckily an elderly lady pointed me in the right direction.

tennoji temple (same as last post)

b&w treatment of japanese temple roof and afternoon moon.

shake here for good luck. You throw your
money in a tray and shake the rope three times
then pray.

nothing in particular i just love taking photos
of these on the roof. most temples have different ones.

some big orange doors at tennoji. They were about
3.5m tall.

another good luck thing. buy some incense, burn them, wave them aound
until they go out (if you blow them out it's bad luck). put them in the big
thing then cover your ailing body part with smoke. Mika usually puts it
on my head because she thinks my brain needs fixing.

a carp (koi) in a japanese pond at tennoji.

Doya Doya?? ( i think)

2007-02-08T17:19:00.000+09:00

I went to two festivals on the same day and can't remember what this one is called. It was at Tennoji in Osaka. First we went to a Kushi Katsu restaurant above daimaru in umeda for lunch with Mika's mum. I love kushikatsu. All that deepfried goodness. It's kind of like fish and chips but you cook it yourself in the middle of table as you want it. I had the mix pack. so some squid, salmon, prawns, beef, mushroom and some other vegetables.

Mika and her mum at lunch. you can see the deep fryer
in the middle of the table.

after lunch we went to tennoji for the festival. We got there about an hour before it started but it was already too busy to get a good spot for photos. Any festival in japan is full of amateur photographers with their full kit. Before i got a decent camera i would always get lens envy everytime i went to a festival but now i realise they're just trying to make up for being short :-). so the festival is something to do with luck (like every festival here). Young boys dressed in the undies run around in the middle of winter trying to catch pieces of paper while their teachers throw cold water on them. How much some of my teachers would have loved to do that to me. It was pretty funny and the teachers had a great time. Everyone let out a huge cheer everytime caught one of the lucky charms.

Here they are heading to the main temple. They all are screaming
yashoi ( i think, don't know what it mean)

here's the young kids. they didn't get any water thrown
on them though. notice the big yellow buckets of water on the left.

and lastly the fun part of the festival. it seems boys are more
likely to wear a g-string in japan than women.

australia day!!!

2007-01-27T18:48:00.000+09:00

I started of the day with the usual vegemite on toast and a cup of hot milo. Milo is different over here. It's not as chunky and the taste is different. Still tastes ok but i prefer the malt one we have in Australia. For lunch we planned to go to the new Aussie cafe in Namba but the lunch menu was crap. I wanted to have fish and chips but they had crap like salmon and ham and tomato baguette. Since when is a baguette australian. After that we went to the Aussie Outback steakhouse but it wasn't open for lunch so ended up at Saizeria and had a 200g piece of Australian beef. You can actually get a piece of aussie steak cheaper in Japan than Australia. It cost 800 yen or less than $10 AUD.

Since i couldn't get fish and chips for lunch i decided to cook it for dinner.

a plate of prefried goodness

I'm not sure what type of fish it was. Mika said it was from Hokkaido. It was white and had no bones so was perfect.

the final product with a couple of Ebbisu beers. My favourite beer in Japan.

Mika with her favourite socks mum sent over last year.

Yamabushi

2007-01-15T19:11:00.000+09:00

Sunday morning we went to watch Mika's dad performing in a small Yamabushi festival at his groups temple. The bigger festivals are good but sometimes it's nice to go to this type of thing to get up close and actually see what's going on.

Here's Mika's dad about to perform his part of the ceremony.

One of these almost hit me. Luckily they could only fly about 3 metres.

about to start the fire.

not sure what it is that he is reading but this seems to be most important part of any yamabushi ceremony i've been too.

and as you can see it got very smoky and we got covered in ash.

Mika's dad throwing sticks onto the fire. You write your wish on the stick then it gets thrown in and hopefully your wish comes true.

Namba

2007-01-15T18:24:00.000+09:00

My time in Japan is starting to come to an end. Only about 10 weeks to go until i'm back home in Australia. So before I go home I want to capture some photos of my home town for the last 18 months. Osaka, like any big city comes alive at night. It's famous for it's food and over eating. The dished are usually much larger in Osaka and there are just restaurants everywhere. Anyway last Friday night i headed into the Namba, Shinsaibashi area which is also famous for the neon lights.

Here's the entrance to Namba parks. An upmarket shopping centre. On each roof of the terraced building are nice gardens and an auditorium.

This is the famous ferris wheel or festival wheel as most Japanese people seem to call them. It's in the young area of dotombori. You can get great crepes just next door.

This is the main eating area of dotombori. There are hundreds of restaurants and lots of takoyaki street vendors and of course like everywhere in Japan, lots of bicycles.

This is Hozen-Ji. People who work close to water or some type of water related industry come here to pray. You throw water over the moss covered statues for good luck.

One of the many Takoyaki street vendors around Namba. This one is my favourite but usually there is a huge line on the weekends.

Den Den town. Which basically is electron town. This whole area is full of electronic shops selling computer parts, cameras, audio gear and the latest technology. This was the first place i visited when i arrived in Japan in 2005 to buy my lumix fz30 camera. I had been in the country less than 12 hours and had it charged taking photos.

Toka Ebisu - Nishinomiya Jina

2007-01-11T17:47:00.000+09:00

Yesterday i went to Nishinomiya Jinja for Toka Ebisu. It's a festival where you go and pray for good business luck and to have a prosperous year. Nishinomiya Jinja is the head ebisu shrine in Japan and about 2 million people make the yearly pilgrimage for the three days. All the way from the station to the shrine are hundreds of street vendors selling lots of great food and good luck charms to leave at the shrine.

as always click on the image to see a larger photo.

the main gate of the shrine grounds at about 9:30am. Seemed to be mainly
old people. Not sure how many are still in business or if it's just habit.

the entrance to the actuall shrine.

These guys hit you in the head with a paper pompom
for good luck as you enter the shrine.

Nishinomiya Jina.

this is where everyone throws money for good luck. Not sure
why security is needed as most people are only throwing in
5 or 10 yen coins. It'd take a few hours to get a $100. Or maybe
he's guarding the sake barrels behind him.

a giant tuna that you stuff with money. People were sticking money
in every cavity. As you can see it was 2.55m long and 295 kg or about $15,000.

some good luck charms to hang in your office or leave at the
shrine

one of the street vendors cooking sausages, yaki soba and
okonomiyaki.

this is where you donate yet some more money and leave
your bamboo good luck charm thing for a prosperous year.
with all the good luck you wonder how Japan ever has trouble
financially.

for extra good luck you can get your bamboo hand carved.
these were selling for around $60.

Ikuta Jinja - Kobe

2007-01-11T17:23:00.000+09:00

Ikuta Jinja is a small shrine in Kobe that is known as the place to visit if you're looking for love or to visit with your partner for good luck in your relationship. We visited there in the week after new years which is it's popular time. The first thing i noticed was all the sponsorship signs leading up to the shrine. Goes to show religion is for sale everywhere and another reason why i don't take any religion seriously.

The shrine itself is supposed to be one of the oldest in Japan but they seem to say that about every shrine i've visited except Horyuji which is actually regarded as the oldest in Japan and is the oldest wooden building in the world.

the main entrance gates for the shrine. Notice all the lovely
advertisements on the left. Adds a great touch to one of the oldest shrines
in Japan. I'm sure the monks will appreciate a nice cup of UCC
coffee after a long session trying to reach nirvana.

this was part of a ceremony taking placeinside the shrine. Not sure what it was for
but there were lots of young men getting thebranches waved over their heads.
I think it may be for good fortune in business.

Some barrels of sake that are at most shrines this time of year.
The tigers are the local professional baseball team. They really do
need some luck.

Wishing for love. This is a part of the many omukuji all over the shrine.
the pink loveheart says "love" in japanese and as you can see from the others
has a message written on the back. Usually it's a young girl wishing to
meet her dream husband.

Himeji Castle

2007-01-10T16:34:00.000+09:00

This was the second time for me to visit Himeji Castle. The first was back in Summer with Mika's parents for a quick stop on the way home from a Weekend away in Okayama. We only stayed for about 20mins at night but the castle was lit up so well worth the stop. We had planned to visit in Autumn but went to so many other places just didn't fit it in so here we are in January and we finally made it back.

You can see the castle pretty much straight out of the train station and is about a 10min walk from the station. It's perched up high above the city and is a grand sight from any direction. Also known as the "white heron" because of it's white walls and graceful demeanour. It is one of four castles in Japan that is a world heritage site and unlike most European castles of the same era, Himeji is predominately built with timber. 360 tonnes of timber and 75,000 tiles were used for it's construction.

as with all post, click on the image to see a bigger photo or go to my flickr site to see a few more www.flickr.com/photos/brettinjapan

a wide view taken from the front plain.

me and mika inside the castle grounds.

this is my favourite picture of the castle. This view point just
fit my 50mm prime perfectly so i couldn't stop taking photos. I
think i deleted about 100 photos when we got home.

some old guns inside the castle.

these holes or hatches were everywhere around the castle. Some
were bigger than others and were used to throw stones, spears
and boiling water onto enemies. Might be useful back in OZ for the JW
doorknockers.

this the princesses quarters. It was huge. I can't remember exactly
home many tatami mats but it was very big. Here they are playing a
memory game with shells that we usually play with cards.

the top of the castle. This is where the princess would do her
daily prayers along with the lord of the castle.

Koko-En Gardens

2007-01-10T16:12:00.000+09:00

Next to Himeji Castle is Koko-En Japanese Gardens. The entry was included with our ticket to Himeji Castle and we were a bit behind schedule so couldn't go to Mt Shosa as we planned. The Gardens were a bit ordinary being winter but there was a huge Japanese pond with heaps of huge Koi (carp) and a couple of waterfalls. It wasn't busy at all so there was a really nice atmosphere. We spent about an hour and half mainly taking photos and lazing about. It was a nice sunny day and really didn't feel like winter.

Mika taken by suprise looking at the Koi in one of the ponds.

bamboo reflection with Koi at the last pond in the gardens.

photoshop gone a bit crazy. I loved the motion of this picture. i think
the shape of the fish and the motion of the tail make a graceful picture.
Click to have a look at it bigger.

Mika loves to take photos of me taking photos. That's my lense
nikkor 80-200mm f2.8d. It's a bit heavy (1.5kg) so you can
see i'm using a monopod (poor mans VR) between my legs.

New Years Day

2007-01-03T16:19:00.000+09:00

New Years day we went to Yoshino to visit a few more shrine and temples. It was really quite and most of the shops were closed. Mika wore her kimono so i had a chance to take some great photos in an a nice setting. Before going to Yoshino we had a traditional new years day breakfast. Osechi which is cold vegetables and fish cooked a few days before so you don't have to prepare on the day. It tasted ok but i would have preferred a hot meal on a cold winters morning.

new years prayers at Yoshino

nice hot udon for lunch at Yoshino across from Kipunsenji temple.

walking down to no-ten daijin temple at Yoshino. There were a lot of steep stair and i'm not sure how mika didn't take a spill wearing the traditional slippers.

just a funny statue at the temple

inside the temple buring candles and incence to pray for good luck

New Years Eve

2007-01-03T16:03:00.000+09:00

New Years Eve is the big holiday in Japan. Families come together to celebrate, pray, eat, drink and clean. We started new years eve by having Fugu Nabe at Mika's parents. It's the third time i've had Fugu so am not really worried about dying anymore but there were a few suprises this time. First was a big tray of fugu testicles. They were big, soft and quite difficult to eat. Second i got to eat the fishes face. After cooking all the bones fall out of the face and you're left with the lips, skin and flesh behind the skin. It was actually really tasty and my favourite part of the fish. at around 11:30 we went to a local shrine so mika and her family could do their new year prayers and drink sweet sake. Even though it was a small shrine there was still a 200m line waiting to do their prayers and a huge fire to keep everyone warm.

Mika eating fugu skin.

fish testicles anyone? i was really suprised that people eat them but you have to try everything once right?

this is the fugu mouth. The white in the centre of the fish is the lips. It was actually really nice.

the sweet sake stand at the shrine in Amagasaki. It was really nice but they didn't give you enough.

the shrine and fire. nice and warm on a very cold winter night.

Christmas Day

2007-01-03T12:43:00.000+09:00

We had a quiet christmas after going out on christmas eve. We had a kentucky xmas pack for lunch then went to Mika's parents and had roast chicken, roast vegetables and seafood paella for dinner. It was the first time anyone in mika's family had eaten roast vegetables and chicken gravy.

our huge christmas tree and a few gifts.

my annoying musical christmas card from Mika.

Mika cooking paella (spelling?) with prawns, clams, squid, rice and capsicum.

Mika's family and some red wine with dinner.

we ended up with two christmas cakes. these were by far the best christmas cakes i've ever had.

Christmas Eve

2007-01-03T12:27:00.000+09:00

christmas eve was a really fun day. Even though christmas in japan is nothing about religion (which i much prefer) it feels more like christmas here because it winter. We started the day with hotcakes for breakfast then went to the Osaka pool which turns into an ice skating ring during winter then to Osaka aquarium at night to see the christmas lights. Christmas eve is kind of like valentines in japan. it's a real couples day, exchanging gifts and lots of couples on dates. It's a really nice atmosphere.

It was my second time to go ice skating and it was much easier this time. I could only skate for about three hours then my feet started to ache. Mika has been ice skating since primary school so she made me look like an idiot. anyway here's some pics.

the entrance to the ice skating ring.

yeah i'm a speed maching on the ice.

the christmas tree at osaka aquarium. it was about 30 metres tall and there was a 200m line to get your photo in front of it.

Christmas lights in Osaka

2007-01-03T11:52:00.000+09:00

we went to Nakanoshima in Osaka to see the christmas lights on the 23rd or as they call it in Japan Christmas eve eve. Because christmas is not a public holiday in Japan, many people celebrated on the 23rd and 24th. the christmas lights were ok but after going to luminarie a few weeks ago nothing special. We were really suprised how busy it was and so many old camera otaku (camera addicts with big cameras, lenses and everything else you can buy). I can never understand why old people always go to things on the weekend when they could have gone any day of the week. I think it's just to annoy young people.

Here's mika with a christmas belgium waffle while we were waiting for the lights to turn on.

the main street leading up to the park.

a german friendship christmas tree

Autumn 2006

2007-01-03T11:13:00.000+09:00

I've been really slack with the blogging for the last couple of months but have been trying to work out a decent workflow with the thousands of photos i've taken during Autumn and made the mistake of only shooting in raw which is a pain in the ass if you just want to do a quick blog. anyway autumn is well and truly gone but here's a few pictures of some of the places i visited in October, November and December.

Koyosan in October. This was the first place we visited to see the Koyo (red autumn leaves). It's a small temple village on top of mount Koyo. It's also famous for Okonoin cemetry which is home to thousands of corporate graves and famous figures of Japanese history.

Takedao Onsen village. I came across this one by accident and the leaves changed about a month earlier here because it's in the mountains. It was a great day hiking and only about 30mins from home.

Ryuanji temple in Mino NP. I went here many times over Autumn because it's very close to home. This is where i saw the Yamabushi festival earlier in the year.

Yoshiminedera about halfway between Osaka and Kyoto. It's recent fame is being one of the places used for Memoirs of a Geisha. I saw it on TV as one of the autum secrets of Kansai. Certainly not a secret anymore. There was about 200 people waiting at the bus stop for the bus that only left every hour and was even worse coming home. It was one of the most beautiful temples i've been to. Really big grounds and lots of smaller temples to look at. Nice view from the top of the mountain as well.

This was also taken at Yoshiminedera. I like the autumn colours and the beautiful bokeh caused buy the shallow DOF using a 300mm f4 prime lense.

The famous Sanzen-in in Ohara, Kyoto. One of the better spots in Kyoto for Koyo viewing. It Was really busy but easy to find a quiet corner. Many of the small temples and shrines give you green macha tea and japanese sweets as you sit on the tatami looking over the temple garden.

the famous statues of Sanzen-in. These can usually been seen on posters at most train stations in the Kansai area.

just another one from Ohara to show the contrasting colours you see here in Autumn. Very different to Autumn back home in Queensland.

Ichio near Kiyomizu in Kyoto.

a small shrine in Kyoto. We planned to go to Kiyomizu to see the koyo lit up at night but there were thousands of people lined up to get in so we decided not to bother. We had to walk some back streets to get back to the station because of the crowds and came across this place.

just walking between temples in Arashiyama. This is two images blended because there was to much exposure variation in the scene.

my take on a classic arashiyama autumn photo. Arishiyama is famous for the bamboo grove and momoji.

finally my last Autumn stop, Tofukuji in Kyoto. This is apparently the most visited temple in Japan of Autumn. It was nice but certainly not as spectacular as some of the other places i visited over the last few months.

Luminarie!!

2006-12-20T16:41:00.000+09:00

Luminarie is a light festival in Kobe City for the great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995. We went on monday night to try and miss the crowds. It wasn't as busy as we expected but their website says there were still 300,000 people there. Over the two weeks they get almost 4.5 million visitors to walk up one narrow street and a park at the end. The lights are amazing and the theme changes every year. It's not christmas lights but all the stores around there are playing christmas carols so feels like xmas anyways.

this is the main street entrance. as usual a camera
can't capture how beautiful it really was.

you can actually give your camera to someone in
japan and they won't steal it. Have to be careful
they're not a foreigner though.

the main display at the park after the first street. This was
huge. about the size of 3 tennis courts i guess.

lost on a mountain!!

2006-11-22T11:17:00.000+09:00

After walking the train trail along the river i noticed some signs that had a course with some waterfalls and viewing spots for the maple leaves. I could hear some other people ahead so thought i should check it out. There were 5 different trails so of course i picked the longest and most difficult. This seems to happen most of the time when you can't read the signs. back in spring i did the same thing at Setsukyo. There was a track leading up a mountain so i thought if there's a track there should be something interesting at the top. I got to the top after about an hour and there was a bench with a lovely view of some green trees that had overgrown the lookout view.

Anyway i didn't know how long this hike was going to be so i made a plan if i didn't start descending again after two hours i would turn around and go back. The climb was pretty difficult. really steep in most parts and lots of switchbacks. It was 8'c but i was sweating like pig and exhausted after about 1 hour. about half way up i came to a lookout and it was well worth it. The view was incredible. Still i didn't know how long it was going to take so couldn't stop for long. Right on two hours i was sitting on the top of the mountain eating onigiri for lunch.

This is the view from the bench i ate my lunch at. It was freezing cold at the top but i was glad i kept going even though most of the way i didn't have clue where i was going.

another view from the top. not as nice a photo but i could see a large city on the horizon. I think maybe takarazuka or kobe.

another cheesy portrait on the way down the mountain.

I love this one. The green, red and yellow gives great contrast.

anway i made it home safely, even though i could hardly walk to the train station. Lesson learnt if you're going to climb a mountain you don't need 4 camera lenses especially when one of them is a 300mm f4 and i really need to get a lighter tripod.

you can see more of the photos at my flickr page.
www.flickr.com/photos/brettinjapan

Takedao: a day in the mountains

2006-11-22T10:44:00.000+09:00

Last week i stumbled across this small onsen village on the internet while looking for places to go and see the autumn leaves. It's about 30mins from home but feels a million miles away from osaka. The train station is actually in a tunnel under the mountains and when i arrived around 7:30am i thought i must have been in the wrong place because i was the only person to get off the train. Reports on the internet said the mountains in the area were at their peak for autumn viewing so i was expecting some more people.

Takedao station. The blur is a rapid express train heading
to shin sanda i think.

The autumn leaves were beautiful and it was nice to take some photos that weren't disected by powerlines for a change. The area is famous for the walking trail where you have to walk along an old train line that follows the river. Along the line there are 8 old train tunnels that you have to walk through. The first few were pretty short so there was enough light but after that most of them are at least a couple of hundred metres and on bends so you can't see the other end and it's totally dark inside. Luckily i spotted on a website you need to bring a torch. I noticed a sign leading to the trail that you need to be careful of bag snatchers in the tunnel. Not comforting when your by yourself carrying around $3000 worth of camera gear.

This is one of the tunnels you have to walk through. This one seemed about 300m and because it was on a bend in the river once you went in about 40m you couldn't see either end of the tunnel.

Here's one of the hidey holes in the middle of tunnel where the bag snatchers apparentley hide out.

I wasn't sure if the fence and piled up railway sleepers meant to stop here but i got some nice photos from the other side of this old bridge so i guess it's all good. I was here bymyself so actually used my remote to take some shots of myself. I'm suprised how well the remote works over a fair distance for $30.

This is a view from the other side of the bridge. The colours didn't really come up as well as i hoped in this photo but it was still a beautiful scene. It was amazing that you can find these places 30mins outside the 2nd biggest city in japan.

here's my attempt at a classic japanese momoji (maple) picture. Pretty bad attempt now that i look closely at the composition but the colours are nice.

This is the other endo of the train trail. the remains of the bridge got taken out in a big flood about 10 years ago so you can't access any of the tunnels past here.

This was one of the first photos i took when i got off the train. It was actually really nice that there was no one else there. i love the reflections in this one. The water was so still and clear that you can see the colours in the reflection.

I HATE!!!!!! F#%&!NG MONKEYS!!!!!!!!!

2006-11-20T12:58:00.000+09:00

I went to Mino NP again last week to see if the autum leaves had changed yet. It's close to my house so it's easy to get to and is one of the more famous places in japan for autumn. I went with a friend and as we were walking back down the mountain a monkey started running at her and snatched her bag from her hands. Now comes the worst part!! the monkey stole my F"#$%#"ng BEER!!!! Everytime i tried to get the bag back it started to growl at me and was foaming at the mouth. I couldn't find a stick and i thought if i kick it maybe it will latch onto my leg. I already had trust issues with monkeys but this last episode is it. DIE YOU HAIRY MUD BUTTS!!!!!!

here's the theiving little bastard.

Daisen Day 2:

2006-11-20T12:40:00.000+09:00

We stayed at Daisen mountain on Saturday night but arrived too late to see anything because of a little run in with a radar gun and a smurf on a motorcycle. The hotel had a beautiful big outdoor onsen which was perfect after climbing the mountain a few hours before. My legs were aching but after some cold beer a soak in the onsen and some beautiful tuna sashimi for dinner i felt like gold. The next morning we went to Daisenji temple and were lucky enough to see the sitting statue of Amida and were actually allowed to take photos inside the temple on that day.

next we went to the base of the mountain. It's known as mini mount Fuji because of the shape and is often used in movies to look like mount fuji. Early in the morning was really hazy so couldn't really see the autumn leaves clearly but the mountain was still amazing.

It looks really small here but from a distance looks huge. It's not actually
a single mountain but part of a range. From different views it actually looks
like a camel this being the head and the next picture being the back.

This is what we came her to see. One of the most beautiful sights
i've ever seen. There was a traffic jam all the way around the mountain
as it was the peak viewing weekend for Koyo (autumn leaves)

for our last meal we had lamb yakiniku. It was sooooooo good.
i'd forgotten how good lamb tastes. I didn't eat for about 12 hours
after i'd finished here. Could hardly walk out. I hadn't realised but
this was the first time i'd eaten lamb in over a year. Can't wait to have
some lamb chops on the bbq when i go home in a few months.

Daisen

2006-11-20T11:53:00.000+09:00

About three weeks ago i went on a road trip with Mika and her parents for the long weekend to Daisen to see the Autumn leaves. It was about a 4hr drive from Amagasaki and the countryside along the way was beautiful. Going away with Mika's parents is great. Always lots of nice food that i can never afford to buy myself. The first day we spent at their holiday house in Okayama because her parents wanted to play golf.

Along the way. the japanese country side is really beautiful
this time of year. Beautiful streams with bright red, yellow and orange
momoji for the backdrop.

Early saturday morning we headed to Tottori prefecture and visited Mitoku-san (mitoku mountain) to see Nageiredo at the top of the mountain. the story is that En-no-Gyoja threw three lotus flower petals and one of them landed on Mitoku-san and was a sign that it was a good place for buddha. The building is 520m above see level and is perched on a cliff. Apparently modern engineers still can't work out how it was constructed and seeing it makes you think the same. Even now it would be a difficult feat but as it was built over 1300 years ago i have no idea how it was possible. Legend has it the En-no-Gyoja ordered the it be constructed at the base of the mountain and used unexplainable power to throw the temple to it's current spot.

The climb up the mountain was pretty challenging. Mika's mother has climbed it a few times but didn't let on how difficult it was. As we entered our shoes were checked to make sure they were suitable before we were allowed to start climbing. Most of the way you had to pull yourself up the mountain using exposed tree roots and ropes and chains.

this was one of the spots that i felt comfortable
to get my camera out and take a photo. There were
quite a few signs on the way showing were people had fallen
and died.

Mika pretending to be indiana jones or as
they say over here "i'm indy jonesu"

this was one of the temples on the way up. I think there
was about four. Mika's father told her that the floor is slippery with
socks so she wouldn't let go of the building. Over the front edge of the
veranda is a cliff straight down the mountain.

Koyasan

2006-11-08T14:06:00.000+09:00

two weekends ago we went to Koyasan, a small town on the top of Mount Koya. I've been wanting to go there before even coming to Japan after reading about it in the lonely planet guide. It was founded 12 centuries ago by Kobo Daishi for studying Esoteric Buddhism. It was about a 3 hr trip from Amagasaki on 3 trains and the subway and finally a cable car to the top of the mountain. We left home around 5:30am, which i think is the earliest i've woken up since living in japan.

as you can see my face doesn't like the early hours but i
think Mika probably smiles in her sleep.

here's the cable car. There were a couple of sumo wrestlers on here with us. They must have been famous because they had two photographers with them and everyone was staring at them. Mika didn't know who they were and i didn't care. was just worried about the extra 500kg of weight in the cable car.

this is part of Danjo Garan. the pagoda in the background was huge. these temples are still used by monks for training as part of the shingon buddhism sect. in the second temple there was a monk reading from a sutra, which added a nice atmosphere in the early morning.

the main reason we went Koyasan was because it's the first place in Kansai that the autumn leaves change colour. This is around Okunoin. it's a cemetary with about 500,000 head stones. It's become popular here for a company to have a site. The coffee company has a huge coffee mug as it's company headstone. Most of japans famous and influential people in history have a place here. by far the busiest cemetary i've ever been to. at the end of it all is a huge temple that is filled with 200,00 lanterns, no photos allowed though. It was the most amazing temple i've visited in japan. it was surrounded by an ancient cedar forest and a small river ran alongside the temple.

Mino National Park

2006-10-31T14:51:00.000+09:00

Last week i went for another hike at Mino National Park to see how far away the change in leaves was. A few places the maple leaves had turned but it's probably about another 3 -4 weeks away. It was a beautiful day and mino is always a nice change from Osaka. The creek that runs all the way along path is full of fish and the air actually smells like air. About half way up is a small temple called Ryanji temple is the place where i took photos of the yamabushi festival earlier in the year. I spent about an hour here looking around and taking some photos. After that i walked up to the waterfall and sat around for a few hours in the sun and listened to some music. perfect afternoon.

here's the guide map for the part of the area. see if you can notice
anything wrong here. Just think politically incorrect. maybe click on the picture
to see it bigger.

these small bells hang from the roof of the temple and look really amazing
when it rains. Each little one fills up then overflows and fills the next. not sure
what they mean though.

This is part of the temple complex. This one is a 9 exposure
HDR.

Here's the local Yakuza boss keeping an eye on things at the waterfall.
Or maybe he's just seeing miami vice to many times. thankyou Don Johnson.

Horyuji - it's like history

2006-10-30T17:03:00.000+09:00

two sunday's ago we went to Horyuji to see the worlds oldest wooden building. We got there pretty early, around 7am i think. It's on the way to Nara, so about 1hr on the train. From the station it was a 20min walk to the temple grounds. Luckily we accidentally found the tourist information centre on the way and found out we could get a guide for free. I can't remember our guides name but he only usually works a couple of days a month so we were lucky to get the only english guide for the tour. He was a really nice old guy who goes to Nova (big english school) once a week and wanted to use his english. He took us on a tour for about three hours and i learnt a lot about japanese history and buddhism. It was a bit strange for mika going sightseeing in japan with a japanese english tour guide but his english was a mix of english and japanese so was easy for her to understand. I think they both forgot they were japanese for a while because they started having a conversation in english.

anyway Ikaruga temple was built first built in 607 along with a buddha statue, Yakushi Nyorai (arrival as a healer). The temple and budha was built by prince Shotoku and empress suiko who was actually the first female emperor /empress of japan. Prince shotoku is famous for being able to listen to 10 conversations at the same time and give the correct answer to each. Useful if you want to have multiple wives.

here's me and mika outside the temple grounds. above my head you can see the top of the pagoda (Goju no to) which is the oldest five story pagoda in japan. The pagoda is the most important structure in a budhist temple and is the place where the relics of a buddha are enshrined. the pointy thing at the top weighs 7 tonnes and is supported by one pole.

Here's the same view without me and mika. As you can see there are a lot of school kids here. Apparently 80% of high school kids in japan do a school trip here. to the right of the pagoda is the main gate to the temple complex. itw as built in 711. It has two large guards standing either side. we found out that one always has its mouth open and the other shut. its because the sound ahh is the sound that starts the word day and mmmm is the sound that starts the word for night. so you have a day and night watchmen. to the right you can see the roof of horyu which is the temple built in 607.

again this is the pagoda goju no to which. there were some amazing statues inside but of course no photos allowed. This pagoda is known to have a femine form because it tapers from top to bottom so is supposed to be more beautiful. i guess tapers is a nice way of saying big ass.

here is Kondo (main hall) built in 607. Inside was amazing with many clay statues. the pine trees in front have been capped because a few years ago there was a typhoon heading towards the area and people were afraid of a foreign tree falling on them.

Amagasaki City Festival

2006-10-30T16:48:00.000+09:00

This one is from about a week ago. We'd been seeing footage of this festival on TV for weeks but couldn't find out any information about when it was happening. Luckily Mika's mum saw a poster near her work and let us know. In the afternoon there was all the normal stalls you have at a city festival. Lots of toffee apples, fairy floss, beer and hot chips. At japanese festivals they always have a stall where you can catch goldfish. Not sure why but it's popular. There was also a tank full of eels that you could pay a couple of hundred yen ($2) and you get to keep it. Japanese people love to eat eel.

Here's mika at the chocolate fountain. I had beer and chips.

Typical festival, cost 500 yen for a beer.

This is a just a few of the floats from the festival. I think there was around 16 or 18 all up. Basically they run into each other until one of them breaks or someone dies. Apparently someone got caught under one a few years ago and got crushed to death. It's mostly young guys with way too much testosterone and not enough sex getting over excited and trying to hurt each other. Makes for good entertainment though.

Toyono

2006-10-18T17:19:00.000+09:00

Early last week was a national holiday so Mika had a day off so we decided to go and see the cosmos in full bloom. We had some visitors coming that night so we only wanted to go somewhere close so we could get back in time. The guidebook didnt say anything about the 1hr bus trip up the mountain. So after a 30min train ride then the 1hr bus trip it was almost time to head home. Toyono is a rural district in moutains to the north of osaka. At the start of autumn its famous for the millions of comsos in full bloom. It was a really nice area and i wish we had some more time to have a look around. There were lots of farms and very old traditional houses. anyway still had time for lunch and took some photos.

this is taken with the 60mm micro mika's father lent me but saddely

it's been returned now :-( (click on the image to get a close up)

This was taken smack in the middle of the day. The sky was as clear as
as i've ever seen it. One of the things i love about my new D80 is if you're
carefull you can take a really nicely exposed pic even at the worst time of the day.

Tera Machi, Amagasaki

2006-10-06T10:11:00.000+09:00

Last week i decided to go on a bike ride to visit a few local spots. About 20mins ride from our apartment is a place called teramachi and is an area that has 11 temples all on the one street. I went in the middle of the day so no great photos but will head back soon late in the afternoon. really interesting place and there's a lot of really old homes and building in the area also.

I was just playing around with lighting effect here.

This is the "rose of sharon" a symbol of Japanese temples along with Hydrangea.

Yoshino

2006-10-03T11:29:00.000+09:00

Here's a few photos from the day after my hike up Omine-san with Mika's father. After waking around 10am we had to check out of the hotel and did some sightseeing around Dorogawa, the town where the hotel was. We visited a local shrine and a suspension bridge that was quite big and offered a nice view of the town. Dorogawa is a really nice rural town and full of inns and onsens. Seems to be the wives stay at an onsen while the husband climbs the "mens only" omine mountain.

After Dorogawa we went to Yoshino, a place that i've wanted to visit since coming to Japan. It's the most famous Cherry blossom viewing area with something like 30,000 cherry blossom trees. It's also the home of Kinpusenji, one of the most important buddhist temples in japan and centre of shugendo, a sect of buddhism the is based around mountain worship.

click on the images to see them large

These four are from Dorogawa. The first one was strange to come across. they were taking it in turns standing under the waterfall and screaming at each other. The second is Mika and her parents on the suspension bridge. the third is a photo of Dorogawa from the suspension bridge. The last is my new shirt. I went through all my clothes on the hike because it was so sweaty so needed some new clothes. It's a hand painted picture en no gyoja http://arvigarus.bravehost.com/history_005.htm.

just a few random pics from the temple at Dorogawa.

These four are at Kinpusenji, Yoshino. I'm not exactly sure what the second one is. Mika's father had a miniature one that he would shake while doing prayers. The reason i took this photo is because you can see in the third photo Mika's grandfathers name is written on the monument (bottom left name) . Pretty impressive considering this is one of the most famous temples in japan. Last is our lunch. Cold soba and sushi and of course some nice cold beer.

Birthday Cake

2006-10-01T11:54:00.000+09:00

lots of cream and strawberries what else could you want.

Omine San - midnight hike !!

2006-10-01T10:57:00.000+09:00

Last weekend Mika's dad invited me to go hiking to Mount Omine in the Nara Prefecture. Mount Omine is a famous place not only because it's a world heritage site but also because women have never been allowed on the mountain. It has the repution of being the most sacred mountain in japan.

We started the hike up the mountain around 10pm to view a ceremony that started around 3am. The ceremony was to close Ominesanji temple until about June next year. I didn't think it would be a difficult hike because it was at night and most of the yamabushi climbing it were quite old. I was certainly suprised by how difficult it was. It took about 3 hours to get to the top and a lot of the way were very steep stairs. It was typical mountain weather too. At the bottom it was hot and humid. about a quarter of the way up it was very comfortable and then as we got closer to the top it got very cold, windy and wet. Cold wind is just great when you're clothes are soaking wet from sweat.

Once up the top it was quite amazing. there were about 6 large building that had seating for around 300 people each, beds and heating. I guess this is the accomodation for each group when they come for training. We rested for about an hour and then went and watched the ceremony. Most of the ceremony was based around fire and was visually spectacular but couldn't understand anything else going on. I got to go in the back of the temple to watch the yamabushi diong there prayers in different chambers of the temple that was very interesting. Once finished we started the hike back down the mountain still in the dark.

On the way down Mika's fathers batteries went flat on his headlamp but luckily he had a spare set but then about 5mins later my headset also went flat. After falling on my ass once i remembered my camera flash takes 4AA batteries so a quick change and we were all set again. We arrived at the bottom around 6am, went back to the hotel where mika and her mother were staying and soaked in the onsen (hot bath) for about and hour, had a few beers for breakfast then went to sleep.

me below the gates that basically says no women

It was one of the most difficult things i've done in a long time and my legs were still aching for days afterwards but it was one of those experiences you can never pass up.

Kishiwada Danjiri

2006-09-19T12:32:00.000+09:00

On Sunday we went to Kishiwada Danjiri. It's one of the more popular festivals in Kansai. It goes for two days and gets around a million visitors (not sure if that's true). The main attraction of the festival is the floats that get towed around the streets. The float are handcrafted and as you can see from the picture below the are pretty amazing. Some of them have up to 200 people pulling them by rope. When they get close to the corner they stop and everyone starts chanting and getting into rhythm then they start running trying to get the float to skid around the corner. It was pretty exciting but after seeing a few it was all a bit the same.

can't remember what these were called. some type of sembe. It's like a crispy biscuit with rice bubbles, BBQ sauce, mayo and egg on top. really tasty. love heart shaped egg for the girl and circle for the boys.

one of the floats. click on the image to have a closer look at the woodwork. really amazing.

one of the floats skidding around the corner. the guy on top jumps from side to side screaming out instructions.

a young kid with his grandfather watching the procession dressed in festival get up.

Itami airport

2006-09-19T12:22:00.000+09:00

A few weeks ago we realised the local airport is only about 15mins by bike from our apartment. So lately i've been having a lot of fun taking photos and testing out my new equipment. It's a great spot and real sensory experience. The planes go straight over your head and the noise is unbelievable. A few times i've had my precious bicycle blown over. I've been lucky Mika's dad has leant me his 300mm f4 that fits so nicely on my D80.

Itami at sunset.

mika and JAL. This was taken using my 17-35mm wide angle lense. Click on the picture to see a bigger view.

this was also taken with the 300mm. It was a really windy day and this was a really rough landing. click on the pic to see it big.

new camera :-)

2006-09-19T12:09:00.000+09:00

It's been a while since i've updated but i haven't been doing much lately. The weather has been a bit shitty. There has been a few typhoons so we've had a lot of rain the last few weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a new camera. It's a Nikon D80. All of my photos before this were taken with a point and shoot lumix FZ30. It's a great camera a perfect for what it's designed to do but as with every hobby the more you learn the more money you want to spend. So far i'm really happy with the image quality of the camera and the main reason i wanted to upgrade was the poor high ISO performance of the FZ30. The new camera coupled with a fast 50mm prime lense is a low light machine. anyway here's a few random shots with the new camera.

local yakitori restaurant around the corner from my house. This is a high ISO shot (1250) and using the 50mm f1.8d which is a great fast, sharp lense. This is handheld, no flash. just no way this was possible with my old camera.

Umeda sky building at dusk. this was taken using a 25 second exposure to get the lights in motion. I sat here for about 30 minutes for the light to be right and then the car pulled up right in front of me. i could have moved but i actuall like it in the foreground.

Mika doing hanabi. this was taken using one of the lazy modes on the camera. The flash fire to capture the foregound but the lense stays open to capture the light in the background. The longer exposure also give the fireworks a trail of light.

cover and spread

2006-09-01T12:53:00.000+09:00

Here's some pics of my photos that are in this months Kansai Time Out magazine. Pretty exciting getting your photos published and the cover looks great. BTW i'm also available for weddings, nudes, birthdays, nudes, advertising and nudes.

www.kto.co.jp

Mino National Park

2006-08-31T18:33:00.000+09:00

We went to Mino national park last weekend. There was supposed to be heaps of candles and lights around the waterfall but only the waterfall was lit up. It's about a 50min hike up the mountain but follows a creek all the way so it's nice to stop and cool off with your feet in the water. Mt Mino is famous for the monkeys and red leaves in Autumn (expect lots of pictures in October and November). back in the 70's there was a monkey park there that didn't do so well, so it closed and they just let all the monkeys go. Basically i don't trust monkeys and i hate them but it was funny watching everyone get their food stolen and growled at by the psycho monkeys.

Just after dark we we sat down to have dinner and i finished quickly so i got up to take some photos of the waterfall and heard mika scream. One of the monkeys snuck up behind her and scared the crap out of her. the actually act quite viscious, getting there teeth out and spit at you when they growl or whatever it is they do. There's also lots of food stands near the waterfall selling takoyaki and karage that the monkeys often try to rob but usually cop a broom stick over the head.

Here's the waterfall lit up. Apparently it's one of the top 100 waterfalls in Japan. I'm not sure how many waterfall there are so don't know how to judge it's greatness. Maybe there's only 105, i have no idea. It was pretty boring compared to some of the ones we saw in Hokkaido a few weeks ago.

here's one of the famous monkeys. It scored a packet of chips from this bag. I was amazed how easily they opend the packet. Opened exactly like the instructions. Had lots of practice i think.

Me and Mika doing the snapshot pose thing.

me trying to be creative with the water and reflections, didn't really work but i still kind of like it. it's a small restaurant just below the waterfall.

Hokkaido - Summer Vacation!!!

2006-08-25T11:46:00.000+09:00

Last week Mika and I went to Hokkaido for summer vacation. we booked the trip about 2 months ago and even then we got the last seats on the tour. It's very popular in summer because of the mild climate (compared to the 37 - 38 degrees we've been having in osaka) and green open spaces. for those of you who don't know it's the big island at the top of japan that kind of looks like tasmania. It's famous for seafood (crab, salmon, oysters, scallops and prawns) wild bears, deers, foxes, patatoes, corn, flowers and beautiful mountains and gorges.

the tour was great and i'd love to visit again in another season. you can click on any of the photos in the next 5 blogs to see the pictures in a larger size. this one took me a few hours so if your friends or family please leave a message so i know i'm not wasting my time doing these. i will probably add some more pictures after i sift through the 800 photos i took.

Hokkaido is really famous for Ramen noodles. So that was the first thing we ate when we arrived at the airport. we had miso, butter and corn ramen. I don't usually eat ramen that often but it was beautiful as you can see by the empty bowl.

after lunch we headed to Biei to visit a corn and flower farm. We were supposed to be picking corn at the farm so we could eat it. When we arrived we went to a souvenier shop and picked a cob of corn from and branch. I couldn't stop laughing. not really the farm experience. the flower farm was really nice and i got some great photos. Lavender is everywhere here. not sue why and don't really care but everyone was buying lavender everything. Next is me and mika at a lookout. It's pretty exciting for japanese people to see wide open spaces. it was nice for me after living in such a big city but not a big deal when you live in australia. the last photo is mika with a roll of hay. she got excited everytime we saw these, not sure why. apparently they're cute. btw they don't usually come with eyes and a mouth.

here's our first dinner on the trip. lots of seafood. Mika was really happy becuase she didn't think we would be eating crab because it was summer. by the end of the trip we both were sick of eating crab. the dinner was really nice. we had raw salmon, tuna, prawn, squid and scallops.

we went for an early morning walk before breakfast. it was intersting to see a caution sign other than a kangaroo. i wonder if these are just for tourists like many of the kangaroo ones in Australia. the wateralls are famous for being husband and wife apparently. they're about 50m apart.

Hokkaido - Day 2

2006-08-25T11:30:00.000+09:00

After an early morning walk we had breakfast at the hotel. it was nice to have sausages, bacon and eggs after all the raw fish last night. the beer is from the night before. One of the first things you should always do is test the local beer. if they can't make a good beer how can you trust them. Luckily the beer was great and we were able to continue the tour.

after breakfast we headed to a fox farm. The fox park was almost as comical as the corn farm. The photos in the brochure show foxes running around in beautiful meadows happy and frolocking. the park was tiny, smelly and all the foxes looked as though they would rather die. i think i managed to pull of a shot that doesn't look like it was in a cage. after that we went to a huge lake i can't remember the name of that is famous for fishing. the lake was pretty gross. the beach was black pebbles and stunk.

just after the lake we had lunch. more seafood. we had crabs, seafood dom (seafood on rice) and seafood nabe (seafood boiled in a pot). it was really nice and as you can see another big meal.

Next was Oshin Koshin water fall. it's really famous in japan. i'm not sure exactly why but it was impressive. It was really strange that it was on slope rather than vertical. as you can see from the last picture it was really close to the ocean as many of them are here. there's many small creeks that meet the ocean. this is where the atlantic salmon migrage up the creek to breed.

Hokkaido - Shiretoko!!

2006-08-25T11:08:00.000+09:00

After lunch we arrived at Shiretoko National park. this was the main reason i wanted to come to Hokkaido and seemed the same for most of the people on the tour. It's a world heritage listed national park and one of the most beautiful places i've ever been too. It's famous for wildlife and much of the park is unnacesible so has remained unspoilt. In winter the ocean is covered with drift ice, in spring flowers, summer the mountains are a beautiful green and in Autumn the mountains are red. This is a place i'd love to visit in all four seasons.

The first picture is out first stop in Shiretoko. just to the left of this shot was a heap of people fishing but like everywhere else they weren't catching anything. The second picture is our group with a ranger from the national park giving us a guided tour of the park. the two bottom pictures are of lake 1 of the 5 lakes.

This area is famous for wild bears and as you can see from the first picture they're really here. Those are claw marks from a bear trying to get fruit from the tree. the photo at the bottom left is a map of the five lakes. it's supposed to look like a bears paw. the last picture is telling you that lakes 3, 4 and 5 are closed because there's too much bear activity at the moment.

After visiting the five lakes we went to our hotel but on the way back the sunset looked like it was going to be beautiful so we dumped our bags in our room and started running to the ocean. I literally mean running. sunset was at 6:20 and we left the hotel at the 6:00 so not much time considering we had about 2kms to go. it would have been pretty funny seeing me running with my camera and Mika trying to keep up carrying my tripod. you can see some bigger versions of these sunsets pictures on my flickr page. It was beautiful and well worth it.

here's dinner at the hotel. It was all you can eat again (called viking) here. it was huge. 80 differenty types of food. mostly seafood. i pigged out on fresh prawns, crabs and oysters. after dinner we went to the onsen (public baths) they were the best ive been too. there was 5 baths including a giant spa and another one you lie in thats shaped to your body that massages you. there was also an outdoor bath with views of the ocean and boat harbour. really relaxing and soothed the sore muscles after running to the sunset.

hokkaido - shiretoko and Mysterious Lake

2006-08-25T10:53:00.000+09:00

Day 3 - After breakfast we went on a ferry cruise for 90 minutes to see the shiretoko national park from the water. it was a beautiful morning but the sun was right in our faces most of the was so it was difficult to see the coastline at time and difficult to take photos.

the first picture is of Turtle rock. Supposed to look like a turtle and i think it does. the rest of the photos explain themselves.

next we went to shiretoko pass. this is where you can go from one side of the penninsula to the other. the mountain is the biggest in the NP. You can do a 1 day hike up and back but of course we were on a tour so no chance of that. The weather was so hot in the morning. Felt like we were back in osaka.

the next two photos are from our hike to the lighthouse. We didn't make it to the lighthouse because a wild bear got in our way. The guide (ranger, not tour guide) was busy talking about something i couldn't understand so i walked ahead to take some photos and saw the bear. I kept saying "bear! bear!" to the group but of course no one had a clue what i was saying. the word for bear here is kuma. once i said this and started pointing everyone shit their pants. I think the guide was really suprised and by her reaction didn't have much experience with actually coming across bears in the wild. anyway we didn't make it to the lookout and had to go back and spent the next hour looking at crappy photos in the tourist centre. lesson learned - if you go somewhere with dangerous animals, learn what they're called in the native language.

after we left shiretoko we went to lake Mashu (Mysterious lake). It's called that because it's often covered with thick fog so you can't see the lake at all. it was amazing because it was only about 1 1/2 hours from the photos above at shiretoko. You can see how cold it is because mika is wearing a jumper. the 1st shot is of the lake and the second is a picture where the fog cleared for about 5 seconds from the wind. there's also wild squirrels in this area.

Hokkaido - Lake Akan NP

2006-08-25T10:37:00.000+09:00

On our last night we stayed at a place called Lake Akan. It's a small onsen village right on the lake. It's famous for Ainu (japanese indigenous people) culture, fishing, onsens and an active volcano. The hotel was great. Beautiful views over the lake and it was my first time in Japan to sleep on a bed and not the floor. I think i was more excited about that than anything else. We arrived pretty early compared to other days so we had a few hours to explore before dinner.

This is kind of like an Ainu village but really was just souvenier shopping. this area is famous for wood carving as you can see from the people in the top photos. these are carved from one piece of wood. Click on the picture to see them bigger.

This first picture is the hotel we stayed in. I didn't get a photo of the beds though. the second photo is me and mika in Yukata. You always wear these at hotels in japan. Usually you put it on after you go to the public bath. im also wearing wooden shoes but you can't see them in that photo. the last photo is dinner at the restaurant. The food was beautiful. It was an all you can eat buffet. There was crab, prawns, sashimi, DIY nabe (lots of food in a pot) and best of all nice big pieces of steak. I had two pieces of steak as i was pretty sick of eating seafood by the last night.

The next morning we went on a boat cruise of the lake before breakfast. the first picture is our boat taken from our room window. the second pic is round moss. not sure what the go is but lake akan is famous for it. the bottom left photo is the volcano just behind the town. The last time there was any action was in 2000. I saw some photos of cars covered in ash and shops burnt down. pretty amazing.

After breakfast we visited another lake. It had a great view of another active volcano. It's been smoking like that since April. Basically that's the end of our trip. we spent the next 8 hrs sitting on the bus heading back to sapporo airport to go home.

Sunrise Chugoku Mountain Range

2006-08-18T10:11:00.000+09:00

Sunrise Chugoku Mountain Range
Originally uploaded by brett in japan.

my most popular photo!!!

I added this photo to flickr yesterday and it is by far my most popular picture. this is another sunrise picture from our summer vacation.

some more summer vacation pics

2006-08-18T10:01:00.000+09:00

another pic of me with a huge
japanese fish!!
the pool where we spent the day just near
the house.
another pic of the weird snail we ate at the BBQ.
Mika's first ever fish. I can't
wait to catch some real fish
again.

Summer Vacation

2006-08-18T09:48:00.000+09:00

Last weekend we went to Okayama with Mika's parents for summer vacation. they're house is in the mountains so it was much much cooler than in Osaka. Most days in the last few weeks the temperature has been around 37'c and really humid.

The best thing about going to the holiday house is we always have a great BBQ. A japanese BBQ is very different to an Australian one but still very tasty. In this picture you can see sausages, mushroom, Ika (squid), Ebi (prawns) and some weird snail looking things. I ate the wrong end of the snail first and it was really disgusting but the rest of it was ok. we also had beef, pork and cow intestine.

we went fishing and mika used a net
to catch these shrimp for bait. They were
bigger than most of the fish in the pond
so they were pretty useless.

This is sunrise a short walk from the house. it
was really beautiful and made the walk at 6am
worthwhile. I was suprised how this photo came
out. Looks like a sunset to me.

This is Himeji Castle also known as the
white albatross. We stopped here on the way home.
The photo doesn't do it justice. it was huge and
looked amazing lit up.

and some more!!!

2006-08-12T11:45:00.000+09:00

i just like this picture.
this is sunset from inside the stadium. the
horizon in the moutains behind Kobe.

Just a few more pics from the baseball

2006-08-12T11:36:00.000+09:00

going for the bunt
a colourful cheer squad
only in japan do they use bamboo to keep cameras cool
koshien stadium

Feast of meat and baseball

2006-08-12T11:23:00.000+09:00

Last Wednesday we went to a brasilian restaurant in Kobe. It's pretty much a brasilian BBQ Viking (here viking means all you can eat) So basically a guy walks around with big skewers of meat and keeps filling your plate until you beg him to stop. It only cost 900yen (about 12 dollars AUS) and there was 10 differnt types of meat and a salad bar. Best value i've found in Osaka and perfect when you feel like a fix of beef. Needless to say I didn't eat again until the next day.

After lunch we went to Koshien Stadium (home of the tigers) to watch High School Baseball. As you can see from the picture high school baseball is a pretty big deal here. The crowd was huge and the atmosphere was great. I've never been to baseball before and find it pretty boring to watch on TV but it's great at the stadium. Each school has its own band and cheerleaders and hundreds of supporters all singing and dancing to support their team. It can't wait to go back and watch a tigers game.

I'm the fishing master!!!

2006-08-12T11:13:00.000+09:00

Yesterday Mika and I went to Setsukyo Gorge in Takatsuki to escape the heat and try out my new fishing rod. It's the first time i've been fishing in Japan so i was pretty excited. I bought a japanese style fishing rod. it's 5.4 metres long, no reel just tie the same length of line as the rod to the tip and you're set. It seems a bit odd to use such a long rod for river fishing when there are often trees everywhere and i caught my first aerial snag after about 2 mins and had to re rig.

Once i got going it was pretty easy. the length is great so you can set your bait behind exactly where you want pretty easily. first i caught a couple of tiny little things that looked like guppies but were fun to catch. in the picture below i caught some sort of trout. not sure what type but i was stoked. that was the biggest fish i caught. i'm going fishing again tomorrow so expect some monster pics!!

Arashiyama

2006-08-08T16:20:00.000+09:00

About a week and a half ago me and Mika went to Arashiyama to go rafting down the Hozu river in traditional river boats. They wern't really traditional though because they were made of fibreglass but none the less they looked old.

Mika outside of Hankyu Arashiyima station

A short walk from the station is Togetsukyo Bridge which Literally means "Crossing Moon Bridge". It's an old school wooden bridge thats not so old anymore with lots of concrete and strange looking blue neon lights all the way across. Still it looks nice with the river and mountains in the background.

Togetsukyo Bridge and Hozu River

Before going on the boat trip we had to walk up the mountain to another train station to get on the "romance train" that would take us further up the mountains to the boats. It was a really nice trip on the old train that went along the river most of the way. The scenery was really beautiful and not many signs of humans which is rare close to the city.

the romance train

The boat trip wasn't what you would really call going down rapids or anything but it was a leisurely cruise down the river. The trip took about two hours and i saw some of the most beautiful scenery i've ever seen. The mountains are so green compared to Australia and the river is a beautiful blue colour. I only got we twice but got wet enough that it took me a couple o f hours to dry out. I should have listened to the guide earlier that was pointing at the big sheet of plastic at my feet

in charge of the steering

me and mika after i figured out what the plastic was for

these ones were wooden

Tenjin Matsuri

2006-07-27T17:40:00.000+09:00

I went to my first big festival in Japan this week. It's called Tenjin Matsuri and it's supposed to be one of the big 3 festivals in Japan. It takes place on the 24th and 25th of July every year and attracts 1.5 million people.I read somewhere on the internet to try and get there early so you can see everyone getting ready at Osaka Temmangu Shrine. For some reason i got there around 8:30 and nothing happened until around 10:30 so i obviously got there way too early. The drumming started at around 10:00am and was still going when i left at around 6:30pm. Apparently it doesn't stop until the end of the festival at around 10:30pm.

so apart from the horrible humidity the sunburn and being squashed together with 10,000 other tourists it was a pretty exciting festival. I'm not really sure what it was all about because i went by myself because it was on a weekday and everyone i knew was working. Apparently it's been going for 1000 years so i guess it must be something important.

Rainy Season!!!

2006-07-24T11:53:00.000+09:00

This has been the view from my apartment since last sunday (16th). There wasn't that much rain during what was supposed to be the wet season but now that everyone has said that it's over it hasn't stopped raining. The cooler weather has been a nice change though.

The biggest pain in the ass with the rain is living in a country where i am relying on my bicycle and public transport to get eveywhere and also the fact that i can't get a raincoat in my size anywhere. I think the last week is the first time i've really missed not having a car.

Yesterday i finally got a new mobile phone and this time it's a billingual version. The phone i've had for the first 10mths i've lived here was Japanese only so a lot of guessing what i was doing. It seems like i got the only model that didnt have english available. Heads up job to the salewoman on that one. It's nothing special but it has the usual camera, video, access to the internet and one thing i think is really cool is it has built in GPS. here's a pic anyway. i got the silver one.

Hanabi (fireworks)

2006-07-18T11:53:00.000+09:00

In Japan fireworks are legal. You can buy them everywhere. At the moment it`s summer so it`s time to celebrate after enduring a cold long winter. My new apartment is really close to a park so every night for the last few weeks i`ve been able to hear people letting of fireworks. So on Saturday aftenoon Mika and i went and bought a big bag of fireworks and beer to have our own celebration.

this bag cost us about $80

this is what was in the bag. If you click on the picture and look at the large size you can see the ones in the bottom right corner that look like they have wings. These were my favourites. you light them on the ground and they spin like crazy and take off straight up into the air about 30m and then explode into the usual crackling star things.

some of them went for over a minute and others went about 40m in the air and landed about 50 - 60m away. I was just expecting big sparklers like we put on a birthday cake. The photo below i was a bit nervous about lighting it in my hand after seeing some of the others. You light it in your hand and it starts out like a sparkler then you throw it on the ground and it goes crazy spinning and exploding everywhere.

This one was our finale!! It lasted for about a minute and was bright like this the whole time. It`s been raining since Sunday so we havent been able to go back and finish of the bag. Hopefully next weekends weather will be ok.

ten pin bowling

2006-07-18T11:15:00.000+09:00

yesterday we were supposed to go to Kyoto for Gion Matsuri. It`s one of the 3 big festivals in Japan. When we woke up it was raining really heavy so we decided it`s a bit pointless going to an outdoor festival.

So we did the usual Sunday morning thing, hotcakes for breakfast, watched tv and slept some more. At about midday I was feeling really bored so we went bowling. It`s the first time i`ve been bowling in Japan but didn`t think it could be any different to back home and then i saw 'shoeser' apart from having a great name it`s a machine that you press a button and your shoes magically appear at the bottom.

apart from this everything else was the same. The games arcade and bowling centre is about a 2 minute ride from my house and is open 24hrs. everywhere you look in Japan you can see a giant bowling pin in the air but they never seem to be that busy.

The shoes are pretty cool. Nice velcro and pink stripes and the usual everytime you take a step you feel like you`re going to fall on your ass. I`m happy to say that i won pretty easily and Mika threw the only 2 gutter balls.

Here`s me looking great in some
stylish bowling shoes (btw you can
click on the picture to see it bigger)

Mika is about to throw the ball at me. the 2nd game was really close so everytime she went to bowl i screamed out her name. I think the people next to us were getting pretty annoyed but it worked. The ball didn`t even make it 4m before going in the gutter.

Going to the beach!!

2006-07-17T22:32:00.000+09:00

Yesterday Mika and I went to the beach for the day. It`s the first time i`ve been to the beach in Japan and the first time Mika has been to the beach for two years. The bridge in the background is Akashi Bridge which links Awaji Isand and the mainland.

It`s been really hot the last few weeks and really really hot late last week so it was nice thinking about going for a swim. It took us about 40mins to get to the beach by train. It felt strange going to the beach by train but the train station was just across the road from the beach.

The beach wasn`t sand like the Gold Coast but the water was blue and cold so it was good enough. There was heaps of families all setup with shades, tables and lots of beer. Everywhere you go in Japan you can drink. Drinking in public is legal so everyone does it. They even had surf life savers patrolling the tiny beach.

Mt Mino Grand Yamabushi Procession

2006-07-17T21:59:00.000+09:00

Last friday i went to Mt Mino for the Grand Yamabushi Procession and Lantern Grand Goma Ritual. It was a really nice small festival. very colourful and a great opportunity for some photos without the crowds.

I got there a bit late because i wasn`t sure where i was going. I thought i must have missed it so i thought i might as well go for a hike up the mountain to get some photos while i was there. After about 20mins of following the creek up the mountain i came across the temple and festival.

I`m not exactly sure what it was all about but there were heaps of men wearing costumes blowing into big shells around a fire. Everyone there was covered in ash from the fire in the centre of the festival. After the fire was finished the priests walked to the temple for prayers then walked across the bridge to some other temples that we wern`t allowed in.