Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 125 — map & image data — nearby photos
Behind the Seifuso Villa
清風荘 · Kyoto, Japan
Dipping my pen again into the very deep well that was November's visit to the Seifuso Villa (清風荘) in Kyoto, today's post has a bit more from early on in the visit first seen in “Entrance Foyer to the Seifuso Villa in Kyoto”.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/4, ISO 2200 — map & image data — nearby photos
Formal Gate
this gate, seen from afar
Seifuso Villa (清風荘)
I vacillate on whether the photo above is of interest. I've deleted it (and then undeleted it) several times.
I showed the garden's formal tea house in “Approaching the Tea House at Kyoto’s Seifuso Villa”. Near it are a few small buildings loosely connected with shared outside passageways.... one building being a prep room for the staff, another a waiting room for guests, and finally a lesser-class tea room...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/80 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Support Buildings
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/1.4, ISO 160 — map & image data — nearby photos
Entrance to the Waiting Room
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/2.5, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Simplicity Incarnate
the waiting room
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 — 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 1400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Artsy Bamboo
on the path to the tea house
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/100 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Wash Basin
near the tea house
Next to the waiting room was a tea house of lesser status. The next two photos of our host, Will Baber (a professor at Kyoto University's business school), makes for an interesting comparison of widely-differing perspective effects possible with a wide-angle lens. In the first photo he looks tiny, and in the second positively ginormous. He's in the same room in both shots...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/30 sec, f/4, ISO 6400 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ginormous Will
The square on the floor in front of Will's feet above make it clear that this is a tea room. That bit of tatami mat can be removed, revealing place were a pot of tea can be heated over charcoal (the kind of charcoal, actually, being put to alternative uses as seen here).
Also, compare the ceiling here with that of the waiting room above... the ceiling on the right side of this room (the side for the guest) is of a much higher status than the waiting-room ceiling, which itself is of a higher status than the host-side (left side) of this room . I wish I'd taken a photo of the ceiling in the staff/prep room... I'm sure it would have been of an appropriately-lower class still.
Here's another shot of the same room from the same location with the same lens, but with a composition that looks completely normal this time (no mini/huge effects... just Damien peeking in)...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 1000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Kitchenette Shelves
in the staff's prep building
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/250 sec, f/1.4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Path to the Garden
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/125 sec, f/4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Showing us the Main Garden
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 720 — map & image data — nearby photos
Heading In
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 — 1/50 sec, f/6.3, ISO 640 — map & image data — nearby photos
Will Baber and our Guide
our gracious host and our guide
(the guide, walking away in the background, has been amateurishly cloned out)
The photo above originally had someone walking away in the background, and I was going to post it here like that, but on a lark I tried painting out the whole guy roughly with Lightroom 5's new Spot Healing Brush. I had absolutely no expectation that the result would be anything but laughable, but to my surprise it was actually pretty good for the 10 seconds of work that I put into it... good enough to spend a bit more time tweaking it. It won't pass even the most basic inspection, but at first glance it's good enough.
As about half guessed correctly, last week's A Textured, Layered “What am I?” Quiz is a “paper” wall from a wasp's nest.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/200 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 — image data
Knocking it Down
my brother Alan knocking down the dormant volleyball-sized nest
This was prior to the “arctic vortex” descending on Ohio, so it was prior to the pretty frost patterns, but it was still plenty chilly.
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/640 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — image data
Ready for a Picture
this is the piece seen in the quiz photo
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 180 — image data
Lots of Nice Detail
click through to the larger version to see the various fibers
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/250 sec, f/8, ISO 900 — image data
Detail: Sun-n-Shadow Edition
difficult to snap while the thing was blowing in the wind
The “paper” is from the wall surrounding the whole thing. Inside were the combs...
Not too exciting, photography wise, but for me at least a little interesting.
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/1600 sec, f/2.5, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Right to the Gate
Home Sweet Home, arriving last night
at the Kansai International Airport (関西国際空港) near Osaka Japan
I'm finally back in Kyoto.
My blog posts about my transpacific trips are normally simple affairs, such as (for example) this Kyoto-to-Ohio post from 2007, but the return trip from my trip to Ohio this year has been quite the ordeal, covered so far with:
- Doh! Got to the Airport a Day Early to Find my Flight Delayed Four Days
- Finally Got My Return Flight Rescheduled
- Continuing Saga of My Return to Japan: Flight Canceled Again
- To No One’s Surprise, United Blames My Non-Weather Cancellations on Weather
- Halfway Home: Overnighting in San Francisco
The first four posts were of dread and gloom, though things looked decidedly better at the end. I'm very happy to report that the flight from San Francisco to Japan was the Best · Flight · Ever.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 62mm — 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Pulling From the Gate
a 747-400 just in from Sydney at the gate next door
from my seat on UA885, San Francisco International Airport
That's the plane from Easing In on the previous post.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600 — map & image data — nearby photos
Sitting with Crossed Legs!
not possible in economy class for someone 6'4"
The key to this flight being great was in how uncomfortable the flight the previous evening had been from Cleveland to San Francisco, and before that last month's flight from Tokyo. I'm sort of tall, so seats on public transport are usually uncomfortable, but my legs were particularly uncomfortable for the five-hour flight the previous day from Cleveland... I kept wanting to cross my legs to relieve the pressure where the edge of the seat hit the bottom of my legs, but I couldn't.
So, the first thing I did when I got to my hotel in San Francisco was upgrade my SFO→Osaka ticket to United's extra-legroom “Economy Plus”. It cost $155 for the single segment, but for a 12-hour flight I hoped that the extra three inches of legroom would be worth it.
As we'll see, combined with some luck, it turned out to be the best $155 I have ever spent.
(Mini rant: from what I can tell, “Economy Plus” is the recent name for what in decades past was simply called “Economy”; what's now called “Economy” should really be called “Economy Minus”.)
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Next In Line
behind UA893 on its way to Incheon, Korea
We spent a few seconds shy of 20 minutes taxiing the 2.3 miles from the gate to the base of Runway 28L...
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 70mm — 1/2000 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
SFO's Runway 28L
moments before we turned and used it
with a plane still landing on it a couple of miles distant
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 31mm — 1/40 sec, f/22, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
And We're Away
above the airport at 210 mph
The length of the flight can vary greatly depending on the winds and, perhaps even more importantly, whether the plane is routed directly to the runway at Osaka or made to fly 100 miles out of the way to come in from the other direction. I don't know why it's sometimes done that way, but for whatever reason my particular flight was, at 11h 50m, the longest it's been in a month, an hour and fifteen minutes longer than the recent quickest one.
But I didn't mind, because I had all the space in the world:
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Welcome to My Office
The “Economy Minus” section was jammed packed, but the “Economy Plus” section I'd paid extra to be in was more than half empty; like me, most people got three seats to themselves.
Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 24mm — 1/50 sec, f/2.8, ISO 1250 — map & image data — nearby photos
Drink Service
Tonic and Lime
Alcohol stopped being free on domestic flights long ago, but remained free on international flights until very recently; this time they were charging $7 for a beer. It didn't bother me, though, because I stay away from alcohol anywhere around long flights for fear it makes jetlag worse, so I had my standard tonic and lime.
I watched a movie and ate dinner, after which I took a hefty dose of Ambien and curled up into a ball on my expanse of three seats, and slept about six or seven hours(!) This is exceedingly rare for me, so it was wonderful.
In light of the frost patterns I've posted recently, here's the frost pattern on the window an hour out of Osaka...
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/2500 sec, f/5.6, ISO 2000 — map & image data — nearby photos
Ice Crystals at 41,000 Feet
12½km up @ 564 km/h
( What on earth is that little hole for? )
Nikon D4 + Voigtländer 125mm f/2.5 — 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO 100 — map & image data — nearby photos
Eastern Shikoku
from 3km up, 15 minutes before landing
I made great time once we landed... we pulled off the runway right into the gate. (The lead photo above is from my seat while we were pulling off the runway, and it really did look just that rich and orange.) There was literally no line at immigration, so I was through in seconds, but sadly, it took 15 minutes for my bag to arrive. Then on to the Haruka express train to Kyoto, where I had similarly nice seating...
Normally I'm a zombie at this stage in the trip, but I felt great, so I decided to catch up a bit by finally going through my photos from the Seifuso Villa. Therein lies a dozen posts if I can ever find the time to write them.
A taxi ride from Kyoto Station, and I was home at about 7pm to the wonderful cry of “Daddyyyyyyy” from Anthony.
I felt great and energetic until about 9pm when I suddenly got very tired; I mostly slept through the night, without Ambien(!). I've been sort of in a mild haze all day and have gotten nothing done except this blog post, but that's still better than my normal jetlag experience, which is normally described as “crushing”. We'll see how it goes.
iPad mini, f/2.4 at an effective 33mm — 1/730 sec, f/2.4, ISO 32 — map & image data — nearby photos
Easing In
United 870 from Sydney arriving a few minutes early
at San Francisco International Airport, Gate 100B
My week of trying to return home to Kyoto, most recently covered in “To No One’s Surprise, United Blames My Non-Weather Cancellations on Weather”, is finally going well. I took a smooth, on-time flight on United from Cleveland to San Francisco last night, and overnighted at The Dylan at SFO...
(The photo above is just a snap with WhatsApp on my cell phone that I sent to Fumie to let her know that I'd arrived this far safely.)
I can highly recommend The Dylan with one caveat. It's close to the airport, clean, nicely appointed for its ~$100 price, across the street from a huge grocery store (Lucky) and multiple large general/drug stores (CVS and Walgreens), with lots of dining within walking distance. The included breakfast is also pretty nice by free-breakfast standards. The staff was also friendly, and even loaned me an iPhone charging cable when I realized that I'd left all that stuff at my folks' house.
The one caveat is that road/plane noise is pretty apparent, though it didn't bother me because I leave a “white noise” mp3 on loop all night when I stay at a hotel.
SFO Free Wifi Hint — if you try to use the “#SFO Free Wifi” hotspot at the airport, if your device doesn't automatically send you to http://flysfo.com/ so that you can click the “agree” button to get access, you have to go there manually. My iPad and iPhone did it automatically, but I had to do it by hand with my laptop.
iPad mini 3.3mm f/2.4 at an effective 33mm — 1/750 sec, f/2.4, ISO 32 — map & image data — nearby photos
Finally Heading Home
( though not on this plane )
San Francisco International Airport
Here's a simple(?) “What am I?” quiz.
This one has sort of the same color vibe as A Bendy-Line “What am I?” Quiz from a year ago, but it's definitely not the same.
So, what is the object above?
As usual, I'll keep submitted guesses hidden until I reveal the answer in a few days.