Once again I am in Nippon. This time however, there is a very special difference. Amy is with me and has been for the whole time. In fact, we are spending an extra week over here just doing a vacation after all my work was done. So far we have gone to Zenkoji in Nagano, Asakusa in Tokyo, Akihabara (less than a week after stabby guy went nuts there, I have a photo of the makeshift shrine for the victims), Ueno Park and Zoo, and spent some quality time with Amy’s friend Russ and his wife Faith. In addition we got to meet their new daughter Sloane (yes, I also think of Ferris Bueller every time I hear the name Sloane, so it’s ok). 🙂 Russ and Faith have a very nice apartment in the Akasaka area of Tokyo with a heck of view.
The morning of the day we met Faith and Russ, Amy got to experience her first high rise earthquake when there was a 7.2 magnitude earthquake a few hundred miles north of Tokyo in Iwate Prefecture. It felt like about a 5. something in Tokyo where we were staying, and the Imperial Hotel swayed for about 2 or 3 minutes before the quake ended and the mass dampeners stopped us. Luckily it wasn’t any higher magnitude in Tokyo as I have no desire to see a large earthquake up close.
After we hung out in Tokyo for a few days, we moved on to Kyoto. Lots of great photos and HDR from Kyoto, most of which I haven’t finished processing. However, this is one of the many HDR images of Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) that I took with Amy’s camera.
More updates later as it is 11pm here and I am getting tired. That Ozeki Sake Cup has taken it’s toll 🙂
Oh, no not more Sake! Been on any train rides to nowhere lately?
Have I mentioned how awesome your HDR shots are?
We are back in Tokyo in preparation for flying out tomorrow and I had a bit more sake on the Shinkansen up from Okayama 🙂 But I haven’t been overindulging. I’ve been very good.
Thanks for the HDR input JC. I have a lot more HDR images that I haven’t had time to process, including some awesome ones at Kinkakuji and at Daitokuji. Unfortunately most of the places in Kyoto now have “no tripod signs”, so I had to use the rapid shot setting and try not to move… the good thing is that photomatix does a pretty good job of still lining those up right.
Love you all!