Yeah, I’m totally over uploading the Japan photos now. They didn’t inspire me as much as the Europe ones for some reason. Here’s one of the last I uploaded:

So anyway, back in New Zealand I went a shot one of the Whakatane football (soccer) games this weekend (vs Te Puke), and again wasn’t feeling too inspired (photographically). At least the weather was comfortable (not too cold) and the light was soft and even (overcast), so it made it a easy shoot. Click here for link to the gallery.

Two days in Tokyo, flying home at the end of the second. Main aim for day one was to check out Electronics Mecca – Akihabara Electric Town. Because of the inside of shops thing I don’t have a lot of photos, but here’s what we saw. Flying petrol dispensers were a novelty:

Elevator mirrors were also a novelty:

Cherry blossoms coating the river:

Teeny widdle car:

And one little corner of one of bazillions of massive electronic stores:

And it wasn’t as much fun for this gadget geek as you might expect – there’s just too many options, it’s overwhelming.

So we had to sit down and enjoy some Wagyū (the family of beef that includes Kobe, Mishima, Ōmi, Sanda etc):

Ah, but that’s right, I’m saving the food photos for later. So here’s some more city scenes:

Cyclist:

Ferris wheel:

And what was this chicken thinking?

Discovered Mochi Cream Icecream, hard to explain, don’t photograph well, but VERY tasty:

And a plane to symbolise flying back home and the trip is over:

Couple more posts to come on some of the specifically photogenic stuff as well as the foooood mmmm

7 April – Toyota Nagoya plant. Took us quite a ways off the main tourist routes, but it was interesting to see given a loose interest in cars and Toyota’s business model from a work perspective.

And you know you’re off the beaten track when the warning signs start to omit english and become more obscure. This one from a train door:

Eventually we got to Toyota HQ where there were a lot of cutaway cars:

Janette preached the virtues of the Toyota Production System to Nicola:

Little model production lines (since we’re not allowed to take photos in the real factory):

We got a brief demo of the Toyota i-unit:

and then Nicola wanted to try the big persons car (Lexus HS250h):

Toyota HQ:

Cakes:

To give you an idea of just how complex these little cakes can be, that chocolate one above comes together like this – white icing squiggles on top of choc icing on top of mousse for the top. The bottom section has a cylindrical band of light cream coloured cake with the little chocolate fenceposts on the outside. In the middle of the cylinder fits a cube of chocolate cake with the gap between that and the cylinder band of cake filled with cream. All sitting on top of a biscuit disc base… Yeah, elaborate.

And to round it off we finish with another DANGER! LIFE! sign:

Covered 450km today, finishing in Tokyo where we spend our last days in Japan.

Toyota Nagoya at EveryTrail

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We’re up to the 6th of April. Morning in the monastery and Koyasan then down to Nagoya (our base for getting out to the Toyota factory).

The paper thin door to our room:

The view just outside our room:

Exploring Koyasan and we find the sublime:

Exploring Koyasan some more and we find the ridiculous – a liquour vending machine, in what is a twelve centries old Buddhist township…

The cable car that will get us back down:

and part of the ride down:

Signage indicating the heights of the stations on the way down:

And finally down in Nagoya we found and Englishless pub and got Nicola to do all the talking:

Tomorrow we do the Toyota factory visit.

Ok, this one covers the 5th of April, day 10 in Japan.

It’s quite a trip from Hamamatsu up to Koyasan. I think we started the day by hunting bento boxes (to have for lunch on the train) at around 10am:

Then found a beer and coffee (ahhh, what a combination) at Osaka station:

and got of the final cable car up at Koyasan at about 3:30, checked into our room at the monkestry:

(Janette’s feet are tucked under the magic heated table)

and did a quick explore of Koyasan where the locals stared at us:

Pretty outside of a Shrine:

And just one segment of a scary scary chunk of artwork from inside the shrine:

A different shrine that we found at the end of a row of Torii gates:

Koyasan (left side of the map) is just under 900 m above sea level and tucked away in the forest:

Koyasan at EveryTrail

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and to finish, the beer supplied with dinner at the monkestry:

It may have led to this silliness, although it could have just as easily been tofu overload:

This post covers April 4th

Woke up, breakfasted then filled in some time in Hamamatsu in the morning waiting for the train:

Saw an interesting rack:

Watched the street cleaner lady:

Anyway, the train got us from Hamamatsu to Shizuoka

Hamamatsu to Shizuoka & Hatsukaesai Festival at Sunpu Castle at EveryTrail

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Click through and zoom in at either end of the route to see the wanderings. (Incidentally I don’t know what’s up with these everytrail links going white, but for now I’m assuming it’s a fault at their end and will keep linking them here in the hope they sort it out eventually…)

Caught up with Nicola’s friends at Shizuoka:

Where we stumbled into the Shizuoka Festival at Sunpu Castle:

We had lunch under the cherry blossoms:

But some people weren’t allowed:

And it continued into the night:

Ok, we’re all back in New Zealand, so now I’ll have a a chance to catch up on blog posts covering the last week of the trip. For today we spin the clock back to April 3rd where the mission was to get to Hamamatsu (where we were to spend the night) and out to Omaezaki to meet up with family that had the dubious honour of hosting Nicola during her first trip to Japan 8 years ago.

The only way to start the day – a large bottle of non homo milk:

After breakfast (which was actually cereal and strawberries with the non homo milk) we packed up and left our awesome Tour Club accommodation and took the slower Kodama Shinkansen (bullet train) since we were stopping at the less touristy destination of Hamamatsu. And when I say “slow” it’s all relative ’cause it still tops out at 300 km/h

Kyoto to Hamamatsu at EveryTrail

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So from the moment they caught up, these two were jabbering away in Japanese – needless to say I was completely lost:

Then the rest of the family joined in:

Everyone was acting a little crazy, playing dodge the waves:

But I’m figuring the insanity was brought on by the wind. Lots of it. Good for these guys I suppose:

But not so flash on the hair:

Back into Hamamatsu and out to dinner with the cool kids where the cool kids like to go – Italian buffet. Very traditional. It was good, but as I’ve already said, food photos are being saved for a lter post. The parking building though doesn’t need to be saved for later, so check this out – it appears that people in Japan knows how to park correctly – everyone reverses into their parks

To finish up, I spotted this comedy duo just down from where we parked – one of Daihatsu’s Kei-Cars, the Mira Cocoa, alongside the similarly small and economical Hummer H2..

Cherry (Sakura) blossoms are something of a big deal in Japan. Our trip coincided well with the season (which incidentally, is closely monitored and forecasted by the Japanese Meteorological Agency. The season is well covered by photographers -Jeffrey Friedl for example (who also authors many of my favourite and most used Adobe Lightroom plugins). There’s even a few videos of the event scattered around the web. Anywho, photos – here are some of the blossoms that we happened to cross paths with as we moved about Japan. Most are from Kyoto.

Just realised I can’t be bothered copy-pasting all the links, so I’ll do it the easy way and use the flickr flash slideshow (make sure you’re viewing at http://www.colourandlight.co.nz/blog, and can run flash)

It’s our last day in Japan tomorrow, we fly out around 6pm. We’ve got a few things lined up to do here in Tokyo, but generally taking it easy and getting out to the airport in plenty of time.

Japan has been good to us, and we’ve all quite clearly retained our sanity…

Lots more photos to come over the next several weeks as I work though the pile of raw images I have…

Today (2 April) we needed a break from missioning around everywhere, so decided we’d do the domestic stuff and catch up on laundry. Started by visiting a little coffee shop that we’d been to a couple of days earlier. Coffee is just simple filter, but it’s done well and with a bit of ceremony. Here’s me waiting for it:

And then playing with the teeny tiny cream jug that comes with:

and Janette pouring some:

Doing laundry is of course an incredibly photogenic exercise:

But then we started off on a bookstore and CD hunting mission, which resulted in a fair amount of walking…

Kyoto Quiet Day at EveryTrail

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And for a day that we weren’t planning to do much with we stumbled across a couple of wins. First was a legendary soba restaurant Misoka-an Kawamichi-ya.

It was fabulous. But as I’ve mentioned, most of the food photos will come later. For now:

The second stumble was a middle of the city cool little photogenic temple complex. Obviously photogenic ’cause these wedding photogs were hard at it:

More shots from in there later.

Back through what has been our hub for the past few days – Kyoto Station:

and then to our old favourite (we’ve been there three times…) Chabana:

And now for a real time update (6 April) – we’re back from the monkestry in mountains are are in Nagoya planning for the trip to the Toyota factory tomorrow. Accommodation is great (Japanese style, futons etc) and dinner was economical, local and delicious