I've still got lots of photos yet to go through from our trip to Toyama Prefecture (a few hours north of Kyoto) more than a year ago. At the time I noted that it was really snowy, but I need to tone the description down after the massive snowstorms in the US Midwest and East Coast this year.

Still, it was a lot of snow for us, and really pretty, with visits to historic and picturesque villages of Gokayama and Shirakawago.

It was snowing heavily in the afternoon of the third day of the trip, as it had been all [...]

Click through to the large version to see how compensating for severe underexposure has left a dreamy, almost drawing-like quality to the result.

On the outing last fall with Paul Barr into the mountains north of Kyoto that produced "Kyoto Mountain Restaurant 'Yama no Ie Hasegawa'" and "Carpet of Yellow at the Iwato Ochiba Shrine", we first made a detour on a small path even deeper into the middle of nowhere to stop into a remote village I'd spotted on a map, to check out its shrine. There's certainly appeal to the big, rich, fancy shrines and temples like [...]

Wrapping up the posts about our short end-of-the-year trip to Shoudoshima Island several hours south of Kyoto, the third day started for me at 4am with the moonrise picture I posed the other day, then the cold and windy morning's pretty but unspectacular sunrise...

After breakfast and packing most of our stuff in the car, I stepped out to take the photos from behind the hotel I posted the other day, as Fumie and Anthony went out to the room's balcony to wave...

The view of the dam we'd visited the previous evening was better in the sun, though still [...]

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....

On our short trip to Shoudoshima Island at the end of the year, I took advantage of some post-sickness insomnia to try an impromptu moonrise shot from the balcony of our room. It was freezing outside (literally) and the wind was howling something fierce, but I was able to let the camera sit on the edge of a wall for a long exposure.

I'm pretty sure that the dotted lights on the horizon under the moon are on the Naruto Bridge connecting Awaji Island with Shikoku, 28 miles away.

That's Venus to the lower left of the moon.

This makes [...]