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Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Images of Japan

Here are some of my images from my trip to Japan (These are just a few, while I am still working on the images I've shot)... :


This is the view from the main temple at Kiyomizudera ("Pure Water Temple") in the east side of Kyoto.



Here is a woman at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto:


These are some sort of fortune or prayer boxes. I'm not sure exactly how they function:


This is the Hida Folk Village (Hida no Sato) in in the mountains in Gifu Prefecture near Takayama. It's an amazing place. More photos of the Hida Folk village to come.


Night time in the city, Kyoto. Kyoto is very lively at night, and very pretty as well.


Shinkansen! (The Bullet Train) I traveled from Nagano City to Tokyo on this train. It is very fast. It's also the most comfortable ride I had in Japan. My friend fell asleep.


This is Shinjuku Station; the busiest train station in the world. This station handles more than two million passengers each day. Ironically, when I took this shot, there were only 7 people in front of it:


My friend Reno and I at Hachiko Statue at Shibuya Station, Tokyo.

Please read the legend of this dog's statue here. It will melt your heart.

A typical afternoon in Tokyo:




This is (left to right) Yukiko, me and Naomi. Yukiko and Naomi (friends and former English students of my friend Reno) showed us all around Tokyo. It was great! Without them, we would have been lost and confused. Thanks again girls!


Darth Vader and I (no, I am not short, Darth Vader is huge!):


My favorite temple in Japan (and I saw a lot of them) is Zenkoji in Nagano City. It's beautiful, and natural looking, with very old natural wood. There is a wonderful scent in the air around the temple, because there is a huge incense burning pot in the courtyard where people can come and pray and meditate. A great feeling of peace comes over me when I go to Zenkoji.




I can't remember the name of the temple we were at when I shot this photo, but there are thousands of these little statues:


I saw a lot of monkeys in Japan! You all know how much I love monkeys, so I was thrilled! I saw my first monkey at the Bed and Breakfast Onsen in the Japanese Alps in Gifu near Takayama. I was just sitting down to breakfast with friends, when I saw a monkey outside the window on the sun deck. I yelled "Monkey!" in my unexpected excitement, and I immediately jumped up, grabbed my camera and ran over to the door to shoot some photos. Unfortunately, I scared the heck out of that monkey, and he ran away down the road. I was shooting photos as he ran, but I only got one photo of a mailbox instead.

A few days later, I went to a wild monkey sanctuary in the west side of Kyoto, and there I managed to get many photos of the monkeys. It was great! Later on, I also took photos of monkeys at the Monkey Onsen in Nagano, where the monkeys sit in natural hot spring pools.

Here's some monkeys from the mountains in Kyoto:


This little fellow is only about 12 inches in height. It was tiny:




And here are some monkeys from the hot springs in the mountains in Nagano:


















That's all for now, but there are more photos from Japan to come.

7 comments:

Wendi said...

What an experience this trip must have been for you. These photos are amazing. I love the monkey photos!!

~W

KMJ said...

Ohhh, these were so worth the wait. I will be journeying back here for days to come to really dwell in these images. Love the monkeys in the hot springs. :)

carinasuyin said...

Loved the contemplating baby monkey beneath the bench and the woman at the shrine photos! Fabulous :)

Nick Ballesteros said...

Hello Mark! Welcome back! Oh wow! I love the photos! It's one of the places on earth I would love to visit! The photo with Darth Vader was awesome! Not Japanese, but still awesome!

Mark Klotz said...

Thanks Watson! :)

I knew Darth Varder was big, but I didn't know he was that big! It must have been very intimidating for young Luke Skywalker when he first encountered Lord Vader!

zbjernak said...

the monkeys are adoreable...
love the cuddly pic of the mother monkeys and the sons...

japan.... a very contrast land by iteself...nice..

now u make me wanna visit japan

Metallyptica said...

Hi Mark! Well... I wanted to commen so many aspects of those photos...

The monkeys are extremly cute and you also look so cute near the monkey! :)

Those thousand statues are just breathtaking!

You do look like a tiny man near Darth VAder! :p

That story about the dog is just too sad... but so cute...

The latern is lovely!

The woman at the shrine is wonderful!