new lense :-)

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

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

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)

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!!!

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

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

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

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.