One of my fave photos from Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu. It was almost like they set up the shot for me 
.
A newly married couple posing for photos, and tourists in a poled boat passing in front.
I saw the composition shaping up from a distance, and took off running toward them to get the angle. Crazy foreigners :-).
We had the historic town of Uchiko on Shikoku Island in Japan nearly to ourselves in mid-April — love traveling in low season!
There is also a lovely restored kabuki theater in this town, but that’ll wait for another post.
Now that’s a lovely mail box
A few photos from the Takamatsu Castle ruins a few weeks ago during our Japan travels.
Yumi playing the role of The Ghost of Marugame Castle, on Shikoku Island, Japan, a few weeks ago.
I’ve never heard of a Ghost of Marugame, but Yumi makes a pretty good one. . .
I am aware that some castle construction sites in Japan do have ghosts in the form of labourers who were tossed down into pits or well shafts as sacrifices, hundreds of years ago . . .
Dang, I thought I left the keys to the castle in here somewhere. . .
Attempting the zoom-during-exposure technique despite the bright sunshine 🙂 Couldn’t quite stop down/slow down enough even at the lowest ISO, but still fun.
Dear readers, you may be wondering why so many of my recent posts have the same date, even though they are obviously about places and things that happened days apart.
I plead laziness.
After a two-week trip to Japan, I simply don’t want to take the time to figure out where we were when. . .
And for some reason, my Nikon DSLR transfer software dumped about 1,700 photos into one folder instead of separating them by date, though my Canon pocket camera did create a folder per day.
Likely my bad working with Nikon Transfer, but there it is.
So as time allows, I’ll keep adding photos and commentary from the trip, and let the dates fall where they may. . .
A pub in Himeji, Japan. As an editor, I like it. Clear, precise, plain language .
Himeji Castle, the most magnificent original surviving castle in Japan.
I have had the good fortune to visit it three times since 1985, when my sister and I first saw it.
These shots taken the evening of April 9.
You have not fully experienced Japan until you have ridden the Hello Kitty shinkansen .
April 9, heading to Himeji from Tokyo.
While driving a remote mountain road in Japan’s northern Aomori Prefecture in early April we ran across this group of snow monkeys. I’ll throw in a heron for good measure. . .
