Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services Japan stock photography trip, March 25 - April 4, 2005 Updated June 6, 2007 Page 1 of 5 Previous page Next page
	Japan April 2005, continued Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Enjoyed another traditional Japanese breakfast at Hotel Flex in Hiroshima. It was excellent. I altered my shinkansen ticket for tomorrow so I could have time to visit the museum, see the O-tori at Miyajima and ride the ropeway, the Japanese version of a tram. The train ride to the Miyajima transfer point took 30 minutes. I got on the ferry with the JR pass and went over to the island. To photograph the huge orange O-tori well would have required a 400mm lens to fill the frame. Since I didn't have that on me, I would just have to enjoy the view. The deer at the ferry landing have no qualms about head butting you to get food. There are little vendors who sell food chips for the deer there, probably better for them than chips and cookies. There are plenty of kid shots available here. I walked around and took some bland shots of the O-tori. Earlier in the morning might have been better, if there was no fog. Took a walk over to the ropeway only to find that it had been closed on March 26 with an indeterminate re-opening date. Crap! I wanted to see those monkeys. There was only solution. Walk all the way up the 1.5 mile trail to the top of the mountain. Immediately. This was the first time I used the dork zip off shorts on my pants and it worked well, making the walk up the mountain surprisingly pleasant. Unfortunately, the zippered pocket failed closed so anything that was placed in there became annoying trapped. It took about 45 minutes to get to the top of the ropeway. I passed a few people on their way down the endless stairs. There were only a couple of baby monkeys in the lower part playing around. You can get about 2 feet away from them before they skitter off. I, foolishly, tested the food aggressiveness of the monkeys and it was scary. I pulled out and crinkled my snack bag. Almost at once, 12 monkeys began to advance toward me. I quickly put the bag away and out of sight. The monkeys resumed their business, as if I had done nothing. I jumped at them to shove them back. Apparently the monkeys will come up and bite people to make that person drop whatever is held and run away with it. They're scary when you're by yourself and there are hundreds around. They have teeth to back it up, too. I wanted to get over to Mt. Misuni but it was another 2 mile walk uphill. That means I wouldn't get to the A-bomb museum so I started downhill, a challenging walk in itself. I ate some funky ice cream product and caught the ferry, taking about 20 minutes to cross the channel. Quickly, I hopped the train back to Hiroshima station, walked to the rail car and took it back to the A-bomb dome. It was only a 10 minute walk from there and just in time too, as the door was locked behind me. That's pretty good timing considering I just came from a mountain in Miyajima. I needed about 3 hours to look around there, but only had 1/2 an hour to do it. So, I took in what I could. There was a scary diorama of three life-size children walking with their skin partly melted off, with flames and flickering lights in the background. There was a scale model of the city and a ball suspended above it showing just how high the explosion took place. Now I can see the scale of the explosion. The bomb exploded 1/3 of a mile above the city, doing that much damage with just a 10-kiloton device. The basic idea of Little Boy was to use a gun powder charge to fire a slug of uranium into a semi-critical-mass sphere of uranium, creating critical mass, firing off a neutron source to get it all going and boom - instant death for 3 miles around and death all around the basin of Hiroshima. Wow. I walked over and hit the same site and eat place as last night for supper. Today, I actually saw a group of deaf girls at a donut shop sitting, and then later saw a blind man and amputees this day. The four girls in the donut shop were cute, signing away and having a grand old time. Mister Donut donuts are not as sweet as American products. The huge arcade of stores is one block south of the city railway and it's the biggest linear mall I've ever seen. Thursday, March 31, 2005 Up at 5am, wrote and chilled out before breakfast at 7am. Thought breakfast was included in the price but apparently not, as I discovered while checking out. It was well worth it, though. I grabbed the next shinkansen "Rail-Star" to Himeji. That thing is blasting fast, at 285kph (about 170mph). Japanese are funny: They wait for a cross walk sign for a 15 foot wide alleyway with no traffic coming from either direction. 80% of the bikes had a generator type headlamp on them, attached to the front tire and always in use. 90% of the men wear suits here and all women wear dresses and have their hair done. They are the best dressed society in general on the planet. Everyone seems to follow the rules here. 30+ year olds play video games in pachinko parlors. They're the most photogenic people I've met. Kids makes faces for me and always give the peace/2 fingers up sign for me all the time, making them the funniest to photograph ever. I ended up tracing the same path as two siblings through the A-bomb museum. They seem to party loud and hard based on what I saw at Hotel Flex in Hiroshima. A man stopped to give me directions on my way to Hiroshima castle because I was standing in one place, quizzically staring at a map. He offered to take me there but I courteously declined because I kept running into photo ops along the way. He was sure nice and friendly, though. Previous page Next page
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