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Wow, I can't believe how time has flown. I've had my nose to the grindstone with a new fun little project, and I come up for air to find that five days have passed since my last post. Doh!

Our first full day on Shoudoshima Island during a short end-of-the-year trip was decidedly cold and rainy. After breakfast at our great hotel, we made the windy, windy^*  way to the more-populated opposite corner of the island, and the “Angel Road” spot where three small islands are connected to the main island only when the tide is low....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Cold and Rainy “Angel Road”
Shoudoshima Island, Japan

When the tide is fully in, the land bridge is completely cut off, and when the tide is out, the exposed area is quite wide. The saying goes that if you walk across the land bridge holding hands with someone you love, your love will grow stronger blah blah blah. Does it work when you're wearing gloves and carrying an umbrella?

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Lots of Stuff in the Intertidal Zone

It's no Miyajima Itsukushima Shrine, but it was interesting enough. With nicer weather we might have gone further than the land bridge to explored the small islands beyond, but the weather wasn't nice. At least there were rocks...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/4.5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Throwin' Rocks
as kids are apt to do

Because of the “spot for lovers” marketing spin, people leave written wishes/hopes tied to trees, just like at a temple or shrine...

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wishes

Fumie had a laugh at the one in the center of the picture, obviously written by a couple who had just had a fight. The note on the left half is by the woman, hoping to “be happy together without fighting”, while the other half by the guy is merely to hope to return to Shoudoshima Island sometime, and oh, to always be happy together.

There's an outcropping overlooking the area, offering a photogenic view....

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Family Moment

I have no idea what was going on with the hat seemingly half way off my head. It was bitingly cold, and I was still recovering from a horrible week of a cold and a lack of sleep, so I apparently just didn't care.

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm — ¹/320 sec, f/2.8, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
more fake marketing hype, so
More Wishes

The outcropping with the overlook is supposed to be something for “happy marriages” or the like, so there are lots of wishes for people hoping for marriage in their future. The shell above contains wishes for four girls: reading clockwise from the upper left, Yukko hopes “to achieve marriage by next year”, Sayaka hopes “to be forever with someone she loves...” but goes on to stipulate “but to have a kid by 30!!”. Chiaki merely asks “to be married by 30!!”, but my favorite is Sae's simple wish: “HAPPY LIFE”.

Leaving there, we continued our vehicular circumnavigation of the island, stopping for a moment on a peninsula for a shot of the snow-frosted mountains in the center of the island...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/5, ISO 250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Frosty
and cold and bleary

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 380 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/13, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Mountain Lodge

We then stopped the set used to film the 1954 movie Twenty-Four Eyes, now a small theme park. I've not seen the movie, but it's apparently part of the Japanese cultural fabric, about the devastation that war has on a society as seen through the eyes of twelve students as they grow into adulthood during the turbulent years leading up to WWII.

(Oddly, the title,「二十四の瞳」translated literally means “24 Pupils”, but since there were only 12 pupils (each with two pupils), it gets confusing. 🙂 )

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/5, ISO 200 — map & image data — nearby photos
“School”

Nikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm — ¹/125 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
“Classroom”

They had things set up as if the film crew had just walked away, including a made-in-America Mitchell Camera NC10B newsreel camera. Though rusting now, I bet it was a thing of beauty, made up of nothing but steel and glass, on legs of wood.

Outside I noticed some very tiny flowers growing low to the ground, so broke out my macro lens...

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/320 sec, f/4, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Delicate
each head was about the size of a raisin,
so each flower must have been smaller than the head of a pin

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 4000 — map & image data — nearby photos

Nikon D700 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — ¹/400 sec, f/4, ISO 900 — map & image data — nearby photos
That's them at the base of the trash can

By this time the rain had let up, but it was still cold and windy. Some of the mountain views on the way home were pretty, though difficult to capture with the minimal amount of effort I was willing to put in...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 210 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/6, ISO 5600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Misty Mountain Pass

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Another Island Separated by the Tide
but this time without a big marketing engine behind it

When we got to the turnoff to our hotel, we instead made a quick dash the other way up the montain to give a quick look at Yoshida Dam, which we can see from the hotel.

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/640 sec, f/4.5, ISO 5000 — map & image data — nearby photos
3,000 lbs vs. 30 lbs

The 1-meter-diameter sphere of polished Brazillion granite weighs 1.4 metric tons (3,086 pounds), but because it's supported on a bed of water with enough pressure to keep it floating, it can be easily spun with a finger.... at least until it gets wet, as it does once you spin it half way. Then getting a grip is more of a challenge, but it's still fun. The name of the instillation is “uruoi” (うるおい), which I find out now means “moisture/dampness”. How appropriate.

Anthony then ran the length of the top of the dam...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/4.5, ISO 2800 — map & image data — nearby photos
At the Other End

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — ¹/250 sec, f/6.3, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
There He Is

That's quite different than the last time he walked across the top of a dam (a year ago, across the snow-covered Komaki Dam in Toyama prefecture).

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/4.5, ISO 3200 — map & image data — nearby photos
View Down to the Village

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 420 mm — ¹/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO 4500 — map & image data — nearby photos
There's Our Hotel

The white truck on the road in the upper left is about exactly where I was when I took the lead photo of my earlier post about our hotel.

For reference, here's the view of the dam from the hotel...

Nikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 170 mm — ¹/800 sec, f/8, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Yoshida Dam
Shoudoshima Island, Japan

The skys eventually cleared enough so that I could take advantage of my inability to sleep to nab the Moonrise over Shoudoshima shot early the next morning.