Finland is cold.
Read Moretravel
Barcelona by day
I haven't been to Spain in years. Like over 20 years. So long ago I don't even remember it really—there's just photographic evidence that I was there when I was very small, thanks to mum.
Click through to see a few pictures from Barcelona :)
Read MoreSan Francisco
A handful of photos taken before my flight back to the UK, after a week in San Francisco.
Read MoreLuzern
The final destination of my summer tour; the city of Luzern in central Switzerland.
Read MoreBack in Tokyo
After over a year away, I'm back in Tokyo with camera in hand.
Read MoreVienna with A7R - Pt 1
After 4 days back in the UK following on from my visit to Amsterdam, I was back at an airport. This time, I decided that being as I was on a work trip, alone, I could carry a bag of camera gear and it wouldn't get in the way of a holiday vibe. With my A7R and an assortment of focal lengths, I was ready to go.
Read MoreA cure for GAS
Quiet Kyoto
As you probably know by now, I am an advocate of walking through backstreets and seeing what's around, away from organised tours of "look at this, check it from your list". Kyoto does very well in this regard – there are many streets full of old buildings, stonework, brickwork, and little features.
Read MoreFour Seasons in a Day
Every time I've visited Echizen Province 「越前国」there's been some kind of precipitation. The region is fairly central to the main island of Honshu, north of Kyoto. There are no bullet trains going directly to the area, so one must change first at Maibara 「米原駅」to a more local train.
Due to the rather extreme topography of the region, there's something of a microclimate in Fukui. The mountains separate the land into different blocks, which may have their own weather system at any given moment. This made for a rather adventurous voyage from central Fukui to the coast at Cape Echizen 「越前岬」, our final destination.
After collecting the hire car, we decided to escape the central city area with its generic eateries, and take our chances finding something more "local" and hopefully a little more authentic. We were in luck. We found an interesting looking Soba place - an extremely old building covered in melting snow.
After wolfing down our soba noodles, we hit the road. Cutting through the narrow mountain roads, covered in snow, was really very good practice for my drifting, erm... I mean driving, skills.
We experienced hail, snow, rain... and clear blue skies on our journey to the coast.
At our highest elevation, the view was quite magnificent.
We had driven over an hour from Fukui city, and only had to cross one final mountain before reaching the our goal...
End of Part I
Kuroshima - 黒島
For the final two nights of our holiday, we had booked accommodation near Ishigaki Port. Ishigaki is a huge island, and a hire car is a must if you want to explore it. We didn't fancy spending the remainder of our journey stuck in a car, trying to program a Japanese sat-nav, and so we explored the town on the first day, and took a 25 minute ferry journey to nearby Kuroshima (black island) on our second and final day.
Kuroshima is mostly a farmland. The island has the approximate shape of a heart symbol 「♡」when viewed from the air, and is marketed as "Heart Island". We rented bicycles, and I was surprised by how much it felt like Norfolk, except with the Sun turned up to 11.
Cattle raising is a major economic activity and a yearly "cow festival" is held. Sometimes the island is marketed as "Island of Cows" as well, as there are more cows than local inhabitants. We visited the sea-turtle research centre, which was rather small, but allowed us to escape the heat and intense sun for some respite.
Standing on the small cliffs at the southern tip of the island, the next land mass across the ocean is the Philippines.
We ended the day with a dip in the richest green-blue water I've ever seen. It was so cool and refreshing after cycling all day. I can hear the waves lapping at the shore right now...
This concludes the "photo-journal" style posts from our holiday. I hope you enjoyed the series!
A weekend in the Kinki region - Nara
On the Saturday, we spent our time in the rainy vicinity of Kyoto. On Sunday morning, we decided to brave the [now torrential] rain, and take a trip down south, to Nara. Unfortunately, what is supposed to be a 45 minute journey ended up being almost 2 hours due to the weather. It was almost like being in the UK! No matter. By the time we arrived the rain had almost stopped, and we set off walking around this peaceful city.
Nara is famously full of deer. They're wild, but very docile. Some even bow for the tourists (they expect some food for their efforts). Unfortunately, there were too many rowdy tourists to enjoy the area near the main temple, Toudaiji. People were shouting, posing strangely with the animals, and generally acting in a manner which I did not think was fitting for the scene.
After we'd seen the impressive Toudaiji, we saw in which direction the crowds were headed, and turned 180° and started walking. I'm very glad we did. We could finally relax, as there were almost no people up in the hills, though we did "meet" one Chinese tourist group.
The rain made everything feel extremely lush, as if anyone caught taking a quiet nap would be consumed by the vegetation. Moss covered almost everything, which was really quite beautiful.
We walked from the temples in the north of Nara, around to the eastern edge. At this point, we were elated when the sun split two clouds overhead and we were greeted with our first proper shadow of the day. I ran down to get a photo of this bucket, as it was the closest object at the time. The sun then disappeared, after just a few seconds.
I mentioned the deer. Well, up in the hills they don't seem to pester the (few) tourists, and generally go about their business. This made for an all-round nicer experience, more in keeping with the deer we saw in Miyajima. Unlike the deer in Miyajima (click to see them), these ones had little white 'bambi' spots (which may mean they were fawns, but I couldn't tell you for sure). We did see a few fawns, though. And they were too cute for words!
The journey back to Kyoto wasn't anywhere near as bad as the outward journey. We took a different train line, and made a B-line straight for a shrine I really wanted to take a photo of. It's rather famous. It has thousands upon thousands of bright red Tori gates ascending high into the mountain. I'd envisioned getting there around magic hour, but there basically wasn't one. By the time we got there, it was pitch black, but still quite beautiful. Another benefit of visiting a bit later, was that we were the only people there at this time, and so could take our time and really relax on our final night.
Well, that concludes our weekend trip to the Kinki Region of Japan. I hope you've enjoyed the photo-journal, even though it's a little photo-heavy. If you have any comments or questions, I'd love to hear them.
I recommend a journey to Kyoto and Nara. I think that even if the weather is pretty atrocious, it's possible to have a great time and even the rain doesn't detract from the beauty to be found in this historic area of Japan. See you next time!
The Great Buddha of Kamakura
Kamakura Pt. 3 - Kōtoku-in
The Great Buddha of Kamakura is a monumental outdoor bronze statue of Amitābha Buddha located at the Kōtoku-in Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The bronze statue probably dates from 1252, in the Kamakura period, according to temple records. It was preceded by a giant wooden Buddha, which was completed in 1243 after ten years of continuous labor, the funds having been raised by Lady Inada (Inada-no-Tsubone) and the Buddhist priest Jōkō of Tōtōmi. That wooden statue was damaged by a storm in 1248, and the hall containing it was destroyed, so Jōkō suggested making another statue of bronze, and the huge amount of money necessary for this and for a new hall was raised for the project. The bronze image was probably cast by Ōno Gorōemon or Tanji Hisatomo, both leading casters of the time. At one time, the statue was gilded. There are still traces of gold leaf near the statue's ears. It is unclear, however, whether the statue constructed in 1252 is the same statue as the present statue.
Some stats on this humongous statue:
- Weight; 121 tonnes (270,000 pounds)
- Height; 13.35 m (43.8 ft)
- Length of Face; 2.35 m (7.7 ft)
- Length of Eye; 1.0 m (3.3 ft)
- Length of Mouth; 0.82 m (2.7 ft)
- Length of Ear; 1.90 m (6.2 ft)
- Length from knee to knee; 9.10 m (29.9 ft)
- Circumference of thumb; 0.85 m (2.8 ft)
The grounds surrounding the Buddha are very well kept, and relatively peaceful. As 99% of people are drawn to the enormous statue (and rightly so), there are some decent photographic, or simply relaxing, moments to be had in the grounds.
There's quite a collection of people in front of the Buddha. Some are simply standing in awe. Most people start off in this manner. Then, our comes their phone. A few will switch to their dedicated cameras. Finally, there are the people finishing their photos, who turn around and see ~100 cameras pointed in their direction. From studying these people, I have learnt that the proper technique is to crouch down and lollop out of the way, whilst shyly smiling. That's a photo-project in itself!
After taking the mandatory photos of the Buddha, my attention (and most others) was directed further upwards, where high aloft, raptors were screeching and circling. They could have been either the Black-eared Kite or Japanese Sparrowhawk. I did see one such bird chasing a sparrow mid-flight, which was something to behold.
The above photos are heavily cropped; click for larger. All photos on this page were taken with my NEX-7 and SEL18200LE lens. Click here for the lens review. It's at times like this that I wish I had maybe a 400mm lens atop a Canon 5Dmkiii... but carrying that thing around (let alone paying for the combo) would not have been fun on my little bicycle. Plus, if there weren't any such birds around, I probably wouldn't be worrying about such scenarios.
This concludes my Kamakura-by-bicycle photo-journal. I hope you've enjoyed the ride :)