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Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5, ISO 1100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Island
Okinawa, Japan

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Okay, so yesterday's post about Japan's Cherry-Blossom Season Off to an Early Start was somewhat misleading. I normally write about things in Kyoto where I live, but Fumie and I took a short trip (just two nights) to Okinawa, a string of Japanese islands in the East China Sea, well beyond Amami (which we've visited twice, and I've blogged about many times), about half way between the Japanese mainland and Taiwan.

We returned yesterday, and I posted some cherry-blossoms that we discovered while exploring Okinawa. To be fair, though, I have to note that the locals told us they expected cherry blossoms toward the end of January, and were surprised when we mentioned that we'd already seen some, so “early start” is technically true :-).

Our trip was only two and a half days, but I came back with 1,000 photos, all of which I intend to eventually force upon you :-).

Here's one, of a small island 100 meters off the coast of Oujima, itself a tiny shopping-mall sized island just off the coast of the Okinawa mainland. It was darkly overcast, windy, and raining when I took this shot at dusk, facing a slight break in the clouds that made the east much brighter than the west.