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.

Back Home from Japan

I've just returned from Japan a few days ago. I've been eager to update my blog, but I've been having some troubles with time for the past few days. I think yesterday was the first day in which I wasn't suffering from jetlag. There is a 17 hour time shift from Japan to Vancouver. Since I've gotten back, I've been falling asleep at the strangest times.

Japan was an awesome experience for me. It was 18 days that I will remember for the rest of my life. It is difficult to describe in a few sentences what Japan is like; It's really something one must experience for themselves, however I will do my best over time to describe some of it, and I'll continue to post some of the over 700 images that I shot while I was there. I'll include descriptions with the images as well.

In the near future, I will have a web site that will be dedicated to my trip to Japan, which will include more photos and my 18 day journal from the trip. I will post a link to that web page here, as soon as it is complete.