Archive for the 'Japan' Category

Posts relating to Japan and things Japanese

Kyoto Marathon: First Runners

So picking up from my previous post about the Kyoto Marathon (京都マラソン2012), once the runners started arriving, I practiced taking photos. The depth of field with this lens is so incredibly thin that it's only luck that I got anything, but like hitting the lottery to get something so close like the next shot:

It was odd for me to see the "OMRON" on each runner's number bib. They're a large international electronics company headquartered in Kyoto; I worked for them for eight years when I was fresh out of grad school back in the late 80s.

The challenge of [...]


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Kyoto Butsugen College of Massage

Not far from the temple where the Japanese archery event I've been posting about was held, there's a college of massage called Kyoto Butugen (京都仏眼鍼灸理療専門学校). It's closer to the American idea of physical therapy than "massage".... words like "relaxation" and "aromatherapy" have no place here. The doctors (which in this case are students in a three-year curriculum) have a deep understanding of the physical mechanics of muscle, bones, etc., and use that to attack with vigor whatever aches and pains you come in with. The massage itself can be extremely painful (exactly as described here), but the results are impressive [...]


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Kyoto Marathon: In Search of a Photogenic Spot

As I mentioned in my previous post, yesterday was the Kyoto Marathon (京都マラソン2012). I thought it'd be a fun experience to photograph, to see what I could come up with. The first challenge was to pick a location along the 42-kilometer course that was both photogenic and accessable. (Huge swaths of the city were shut down to traffic, so I wanted something I could easily reach by bicycle.)

The course runs for several miles south along the rivers in the east of the city, so guessing that would be fruitful, I set off there, only to find mile after mile [...]


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Today’s Kyoto Marathon

Today was the Kyoto Marathon (京都マラソン2012). The guy above, looking remarkably affable and relaxed, was not only leading the race at the 35km mark (about 80% of the way done), but had a full 30-second lead on second place, and more than a minute on third. I have no idea whether he ended up winning or even finishing, but at this point he looked solidly in command.

UPDATE: he won the race by 29 seconds, in a leasurly time of 2:26:21.

He was, at that point, #1 out of 14,093 runners: 1÷14,093 is 0.00078052, hence the caption.

The finish line [...]


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Setsubun Festival at the Heian Shrine: Intense Burn Continues

Taking a break from the craziness that ensued for me yesterday when Lightroom 4 was released, I thought I'd pick up from last month's "Setsubun Festival at the Heian Shrine: Intense Burn Begins".

Once the blaze was going in earnest, they started throwing bundles of wooden slats into the fire, each slat with someone's wish for good health or the like written on it...

The heat for the fire-poker guy must have been almost unbearable. It was very very hot, even for me upwind 20 meters (two highway-bus lengths) away. But he could never retreat.

As I wrote about in [...]


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