Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18 mm — 1/350 sec, f/3.5, ISO 400 — full exif & map Wisteria at the Sandai Shrine Kusatsu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan The day I got back from camping, Fumie happened to hear from a taxi driver about a small out-of-the-way shrine not too far away that had a nice bloom of wisteria (or fuji – 藤 – in Japanese), so yesterday afternoon we made the 45 minute drive to Sandai Temple in Kusatsu to check it out. I guess wisteria is normally a climbing plant, but here they have them dangling from horizontal trellises. They were mostly purple/lavender, but there were some light pink ones as well. There were a lot of big bumblebees among the flowers (two can be seen in the photo above), and one had to sometimes dodge them as they barreled along. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18 mm — 1/160 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 — full exif & map View from Below 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18 mm — 1/320 sec, f/4.5, ISO 400 — full exif & map Shrine Entrance The shrine is quite small and located in the middle of nowhere, grouped with a few houses but otherwise surrounded on all sides by field after field after field. (See any of the “full exif & map” links under each picture for a satellite view of the area.) It's free to enter, but they suggest a donation of 200 yen (two bucks) per person. I tried to give them more, but they refused. They've even arranged for free parking at a school or somesuch next door. The parking lot had a slide and some swings, and other play activities that Anthony was much more interested in than the flowers. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 70 mm — 1/125 sec, f/5, ISO 400 — full exif & map Considerably Precarious 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 150 mm — 1/80 sec, f/5.6, ISO 400 — full exif & map Mommy-Style is Easier 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO 250 — full exif & map Good Samaritan Satsuki-san It seems that my cellphone somehow dropped out of my pocket while scootering home today. Lucky for me, a kind stranger found it and called the "HOME" entry in the address book: she told me that she'd found my phone before I even realized I'd lost it. It's not fun to lose a phone. The last time that I lost my phone (which was also the first time I lost my phone) it was a huge hassle to have to get a new one, new plan, re-enter data, etc. Yuck. (It turns out, though, that the phone was just hiding in a pocket of our luggage; I returned from camping the other day to see that Fumie had found it.) I'm very glad that I didn't have to go through that again for a second time in as many weeks. Thank you Satsuki-san!  Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/8000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — full exif & map Bringing Home the Bacon I've been so overwhelmed with built-up stuff to do since returning from camping with Anthony that I've only just started really looking in detail through the photos I took, and came across this interesting shot. At the end of the second day, Anthony was out on some rocks just off the beach and playing with some new friends, and I was with them and enjoying the sunset and conversation with their mom. I then noticed this bird flying by and something seemed very odd about it, so I quickly snapped the lopsided picture you see above. (I seem to have a mental block on keeping the camera level, so usually have to correct a slight tilt in Lightroom, but I've left this one as is.) I couldn't tell exactly what was odd, but my first impression was that it was two birds making babies in flight, but a tight crop from the next frame made it clear that the bird was just a working stiff bring dinner home.... 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/1250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 400 — full exif & map Extreme Crop From the Next Frame We started our camping trip last week, May 1st, heading out at about 11am for what should have been about a 3.5 hour drive. Unfortunately, there was some kind of parade that caused the road I happen to have taken to be intermittently closed, turning roads in eastern Kyoto into a parking lot. It took 20 minutes to go half a mile. Not a good start. Having gotten past that, I thought things would be smooth sailing, but quickly ran into heavy traffic again. I took some side streets and eventually got through the city. What should have been 15 or 20 minutes had taken an hour, and the bulk of the trip lay before us. At this point, just as we're starting to move freely – I kid you not – comes the first “Are we there yet?” from Anthony. It was not his last. Once I got out of the city and onto the Kyoto Tanba Expressway, traffic was eerily light, and we made excellent time. Despite having stopped once to eat, we arrived to the campsite at about 3:30. One thing that I noticed during the drive was that the price of gas was higher than it had been recently. Premium gas was running at $6.40/gallon, while it had been only $4.84 for much of the previous month. A “temporary” gas tax created in the 70s that had been extended ever since was allowed to expire last month in what as best I can tell was muscle-flexing by some minority politicians. Of course, in Japan as anywhere, the phrase “temporary tax” is a euphemism for “permanent tax that we're trying to slide in there under the radar” because once it's been levied, "temporary" or not, that income stream becomes a vested right in the eyes of the politician. Anyway, I guess ruling party got around to reinstating the tax, and thus the price of gas went up just in time for Golden Week, perhaps the busiest travel week of the year. So, we arrived at the Kotobikihama Kakezuki Campground and looked for a spot. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 32 mm — 1/160 sec, f/4, ISO 500 — full exif & map We'll Put the Tent Here I had bought the tent the day before, so lugged it from the car and opened it up the first time where I intended to erect it. It was huge. Some of the poles, when put together, were 17.5 feet long. It turns out that the spot I picked was just large enough for the tent, but didn't really allow enough room around the tent for me to put it up. It was a challenge, to say the least. I was also shocked at how much pollen came off the pine trees if you brushed against them. Huge clouds of yellow erupted with every little movement, quickly coating everything in a layer of yellow dust. And as I found out later, the “yellow dust” was not the least bit water soluble, which made for an even bigger mess when it got wet. At least neither of us were allergic. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 32 mm — 1/30 sec, f/4.2, ISO 500 — full exif & map Checking Out the Inside My only prior experience with camping is a couple of two-week long trips 15 or so years ago, bringing a tent and whatever else I could carry on my small motorcycle (a Honda CBR250RR), riding around the back roads of Honshu (Japan's main island). I would be sure to stop by a convenience store each afternoon to pick up dinner, then ride into the mountains and find an old overgrown access road (there are plenty left over from the copious dam construction that permeates Japan), and take that further into the wilderness. I'd try to find a flat spot, and set up camp for the evening. The campground for the current trip was much less “wild”. It cost $30/night (plus $10/day for parking, so a one-night stay is $50!), but they provide bathrooms, cold running water, a place to dispose of trash, and vending machines with cold drinks. There's no hot shower, but one can be had by making a 5-minute walk down to the neighboring beach, to what amounts to a stand-alone coin-operated shower standing at the edge of a big parking lot, with the size, shape, and general décor of a porta potty. All in all, not very rough. So after having set up the tent, Anthony and I took a short drive to the nearest town to find a convenience store, and on the way back as we passed the porta-potty showers, we came over a rise and was greeted with what turned out to be the nicest sunset of the whole trip. 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 170 mm — 1/100 sec, f/5.6, ISO 500 — full exif & map Sunset, Day 1 As it came into view, even five-year-old Anthony exclaimed “wow.” It wasn't particularly spectacular – no huge fireworks of color – but it was nice and a wonderful subtle color permeated the scene. After returning to our tent, we set up our chairs next to each other and had our first camping meal together, a not-very-good convenience-store bento (boxed lunch). I then pulled out my tripod and took the shot shown at the top of previous post. We went to bed soon after... 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18 mm — 10 sec, f/3.5, ISO 500 — full exif & map First Evening Half an hour after sunset. I mentioned the other day that I was going to take Anthony camping for the first time, and I did. We just got back this afternoon. I'll write more about the whole experience another day (one that I don't wake up at 5am), but the location was a campground on a cliff overlooking Kotobikihama beach (map) about three and a half hours away by car, in the far north-western corner of Kyoto prefecture. I took the picture above on our first night, about half an hour after sunset. It was so dark that I could barely see anything (including how tilted the camera was), although the 10-second exposure compensates to allow the photo to show much more than could be seen. The light in the tent was from a single small candle (safely parked in a candle lantern). Five-year-old Anthony enjoyed the moment, mostly because of his all-his-own kid-sized camping chair with drink holder. I'd bought it the previous day (along with the tent, my chair, and a bunch of other stuff for the trip). 
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR @ 18 mm — 1/250 sec, f/5, ISO 250 — full exif & map Final Evening A few seconds before sunset You can actually see a few pixels of sun on the horizon in the picture
above, just left of center. It's as “the moment of sunset” as I could get,
during a fairly drab sunset. Some of the other sunsets were more drab, and
some much nicer. I have shots of them all, of course | 
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