On the first day of our trip to Ishigaki Island (southern Japan), between our arrival and stopping for the sunset, we drove around on the island a bit. Driving on a pretty rough road that I thought took us to the top of a mountain, it turns out that it eventually just petered out into nothing (where "nothing" is defined as "dense, unpenetrable mountain forest").

But before retreating all the way, I stopped to take a picture of a huge fern. I should have taken something to show the scale, but the width of the whole thing, seen in the [...]

After arriving to Ishigaki Island on the first day of our short Golden-Week vacation, we puttered around the island a bit, and ended up at Oganzaki (御神崎) in the north-west corner of the island. In checking photos on Google Earth prior to the visit, it seemed like it should provide a nice sunset, and when I mentioned it to Fumie, she said she'd had it on her list as well, from reading the guidebooks.

It's not much more than a small lighthouse and a small park...

Beyond the park area the adventurous can take paths out onto the rocks and [...]

It's been several days since we got back from Ishigaki Island, in the far south of Japan, but I've still not had a chance to even look at most of my photos. Just. Too. Busy. But here are a few to illustrate the trip down...

The Okinawa mainland is an island about 80 miles long, but Okinawa is actually a string of what must be thousands of islands that stretches in an arc for about 450 miles. In the photo above, we're about 40 miles north of the main airport, which is at the extreme southern end of the island. [...]

We got back late this evening from a four-day trip to Ishigaki Island, in the far south of Japan (just 20 miles shy of Japan's southernmost latitude). We left on Thursday, and 1,200 images and 135,883 GPS trackpoints later, we're back, and tired because we're up way past our normal bedtime, which has shifted several hours earlier since Anthony started first grade.

The island in the photo above is not where we stayed. It's 250 miles from where we stayed; I snapped it just after takeoff from Naha, on the main island of Okinawa, on the way to Ishigaki.

From [...]

A month ago I posed "Pushing Lowlight-Photography Limits: The Atta Terrace Hotel at Night," evening shots from the hotel we stayed in during a short trip to Okinawa during the New Years break. Today, I thought I'd post some day shots as well.

The hotel, The Atta Terrace Club Towers, does not allow children (at least not in the common areas), and it's sort of out of the way, so it's quite peaceful.

Turning around from where Fumie is standing in the picture above, yields the view in the picture below, with the big bath and picture window visible across [...]