Summertime in Nikko

Summertime found me taking better advantage of the occassional "Happy Monday" one shot national holidays that were created to theoretically lower stress on Japanese workers (if their bosses actually obeyed the law).

Being foreigners, however, we got to enjoy them quite freely, and this left opportunities for three day mini-vacations.

A friend at the time was hoping to open a hostel in Nikko, a beautiful part of Japan, north of Tokyo by a couple hours on the express train.

I and a few friends were the first guests at the hostel, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend there that included a few random groups of foreign visitors, an exploration of hidden waterfalls in the nearby pine forest, an unplanned but interesting trip to a beach that completely emptied of Japanese people at 5pm sharp leaving a dozen foreigners to wonder where the several thousand people just went (and then having a blast on our own personal public beach, what a game of frisbee that was...), a fair sized earthquake, a copious amount of imported beer, and a massive flood of the river 200 feet from the hostel that made for some spectacular shots, and also swept away all the stuff we left at the riverside the day before...

Woops.

Anyway, Nikko is absolutely beautiful, and I would recommend it to anyone traveling in Japan as a great place to get out into nature and relax a bit. Oh, and there are a TON of old temples to see, including the "See No Evil" monkey shrine.

 Oh, also, the station you get off at is almost creepily deserted, after the bustle of Tokyo and Saitama. It's unlikely that there will even be someone there to check your ticket. Its nice for the kind of person that enjoys eerily quiet, deserted places... like me. :)

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Golden Palace

The Golden Palace is well worth the visit if you get the chance. The surrounding grounds are beautiful, but this is one of the few places I've been to where the headliner was truly the headliner. The Golden Palace, with its serene pond setting and carefully cultivated little island gardens scattered around in the water, is rather breathtaking.

I imagine that, without dozens of tourists making noise all around you while you viewed it, it could be a truly unique experience. Fortunately, photographs contain no sound. Enjoy. :)

And probably my favorite shot of the bunch. I love the washed out light filtering down through the trees...

 

 

 

Enshrined in the Forest

Til next time, campers.








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The Gardens of Nijo Castle

This weeks installment will be a special one. These are some of my favorite pictures, the gardens behind Nijo Castle in Kyoto are breathtakingly beautiful and serene. I can only imagine walking through them when no-one else was around to intrude on the whispers of nature that pervade the place, complemented by the quiet groaning of the ancient wooden castle settling and stirring with the wind in the background...

A beautiful place. I wish my camera could really do it justice, but here's my best try.

(As always, full size originals and rights of use available for purchase from cncgrey@yahoo.com)
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Snowbound 2010

So before we go back to travel pics, I thought I'd pop up some of my shots from the Manassas Battlefields right after the big snowstorm this year. Virginia can be a pretty place.

Battlefield Horizon

One Man Track and Hollytree

Winter Monoliths

Catchu and Forest Lord

Clear Curve

Old Stone Bridge 1

Bridge Trails

Old Stone Bridge 2

Swamp Bridge

Battlefield Skyline

Forest Paths and Broken Things

River Unbowed

And now, for your amusement and mine, I give you: Snowcap and Santa's Komode!

Til next time.

-Grey

Current Times - 1

For the most part, this blog is going to take place in the past tense, as I go through places I've been and the pictures I've taken there, but it seems strange to me not to keep people a little bit up to date, especially considering the effect recent events have on my (admittedly casual) posting schedule.

Sooo...

I'm back in South Korea after two months or so in the States to get paperwork and other such things in order. In another week or so I should know if I am or am not settled into a work contract with visa backing, once more. Should things go smoothly with Immigration, I'll have a few more hurdles to leap, such as securing funding for, finding, and renting an apartment (hopefully near the school, I hate commutes) and when/if that is all done, my life should have settled down again and I can hopefully convince myself to get into a working schedule.

The blog is not the only project to suffer due to current work instabilities though, the novel hasn't so much as been touched the last two months, which I hate, because I am so very close to finished with it. I'm really looking forward to submissions and rejection letters and that whole "process", and I'm very curious to see if I'm a good enough writer to be published by a major house. If not, I'll probably say fuckit and self publish, but first things first.

Also on my mind lately... wishing I could draw. I'm not horrible. I can represent things fairly well when I set out to do so, but to really be able to draw the human form... maybe I'll find a class or two to slip between learning Korean and getting back into a workout/martial arts schedule.

Yeesh. So much to do. I need to make a list or something.

Well, nice catching up with you all. I'll try to get the next photographic installment out shortly.

Cheers,
Grey

Kyoto Temples

Sorry for the unscheduled hiatus folks, I've been busily trying to secure a great job for myself that would also allow me alot more time to work on these and other creative ventures. Right now, it's still up in the air. Everything hinges on the decisions of one bureacrat whom I will meet with when I return to South Korea in two weeks. Not good. But keep your fingers crossed for me.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and get a daily picture update in from my time in Kyoto. There's no great story to go with them, for the most part. My parents came for a visit and I wanted to take them to see the city I had really wanted to live in, but hadn't gotten the chance to when I took the job in Japan.

Oh, btw, even though they don't let you take pictures inside it, don't miss Sanjusangendo. Thousands of buddha statues, and other gods as well. Very cool.

So, lets get started on ze pictshaz.

Kyoto Skyline

Shot from the balcony of a VERY nice hotel room, four floors up. Oddly, there was a graveyard on a ridge almost eyeline to the balcony, left of the shot. I say odd because you dont normally walk out onto a fourth floor balcony and expect to be eye level with a graveyard...

Grand Old Temple

Despite the failing light, I really like the composition of this shot. The angle especially, came off very well. I have not the slightest clue which temple grounds I was on. We just wandered here randomly after dinner. It looks a bit like Daitokuji, though...

Midnight Cleansing

Incase you couldn't tell, I really like dark nighttime shots with select points of light to emphasize the centerpiece and the things hidden around it. This is a cleansing fountain in Kiyomizudera.

Wishes on a String

Tiny scraps of paper holding the wishes, hopes, and dreams of those who pass through. Each tiny piece, so very important to someone, somewhere.

 

(Oh, as always, posted pictures are available in original format for a price, just contact the photographer at cncgrey@yahoo.com)















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