{"id":1694,"date":"2011-01-13T21:35:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T12:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-01-13\/1694"},"modified":"2011-01-13T21:35:29","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T12:35:29","slug":"hotel-aqua-on-shoudoshima-island-in-japans-seto-inland-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2011-01-13\/1694","title":{"rendered":"Hotel Aqua, on Shoudoshima Island in Japan’s Seto Inland Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm @ 460 mm cropped — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>800 sec, f<\/span>\/8, ISO 800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nViewing The Ocean From 10 Stories Up<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 50 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/11, ISO 1400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nHotel “Aqua”<\/span>\nfrom a mountain<\/span> behind it<\/b>\nat the edge of nowhere on Shoudoshima Island, Japan\n( see Anthony in the lower-left of this shot? )<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

We took a short trip in the closing days of the year to Shoudoshima Island<\/a>\na few<\/span> hours southwest of Kyoto (2.5 hours by car to Himeji, followed by two\nhours on a ferry<\/span>). It's a small<\/span> island (about 12 miles × 6 miles) in\nthe Seto Inland Sea, west of the Awaji Island that we visit from time to\ntime<\/a>. Shoudoshima is known mostly for being the only place in Japan\nwhere olives are grown. It's extremely<\/span> mountainous with the vast majority\nof its meager population sprinkled around the edges.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 4 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nView From the Harbor<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Our plans were sort of last minute, so Fumie was lucky to get the last\nroom available, but in doing so we went a bit<\/span> more pricey than we would have\ngone had we had more choice, but the room was really quite nice....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>100 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nMain Level<\/span>\nbedroom, living room, kitchenette, vanity, bath\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>160 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nUp to the Second Level<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>60 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSecond Bedroom<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>200 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nFrom the Second-Floor Sitting-Room Window<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>30 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nWelcome<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>40 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 1600 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSettling In<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

This suite of rooms was really overkill for us, but if we're going to\nspend the money, it's great to have something so nice. (As much as the room\nwas, it was still 40% less than the crappy-quality crappier-price Tokyo Disneyland Hilton<\/a>,\nso in that sense Aqua was a great<\/span> value as well as a great<\/span> experience.)<\/p>\n\n

You have to be prepared for food before you arrive... if you want to eat\nat the hotel restaurant, you must order at least three days in advance.\nThere are no restaurants or stores (or anything) nearby, but we found an\nold mom-n-pop market about 15 minutes away.<\/p>\n\n

We had the hotel's Japanese dinner the first evening, delivered to our room.\nEach dinner consisted of three bento boxes, and the food was really top notch...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 36 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 6400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nDinner<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

We had breakfast in the tasteful restaurant the next morning...<\/p>\n\n

\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 24 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>320 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 4500 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nRestaurant<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

... and the food was equally good. When you order (three days in\nadvance), you have a choice<\/span> of merely “Western” or “Japanese”. We stayed<\/span> two nights so tried both, and both were good.<\/p>\n\n

There's a cozy common room with free Internet, DVDs and books you can bring to your room, etc.<\/p>\n\n

\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 24-70mm f\/2.8 @ 28 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>100 sec, f<\/span>\/2.8, ISO 2800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nCommon Room<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

Unfortunately, it rained most of the time we were there, but the rain\nhadn't started yet early on the first morning, so I took<\/span> a bunch<\/span> of\nsnapshots from the balcony. It turns<\/span> out that even though they were taken\nfairly haphazardly over the course of a couple<\/span> of minutes, I could<\/span> make\nthem into a simple<\/span> panorama...<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
(scroll side-to-side)<\/center>\n\n\n

I'm not big on panoramas because to do one well takes quite a bit<\/span>\nof skill that I don't<\/span> have, so when on a whim<\/span> I gave<\/span> Photoshop's automatic\nstitcher a first<\/span> try with a collection<\/span> of nine shots from the balcony, I was amazed<\/span> at how well it worked. “Automagical.” It was a gloomy<\/span> scene\nand, like I said,<\/span> the photos that went into it were taken haphazardly, so\nfor all that the result is okay enough. I'll have to put some effort into\ngood shots next time.<\/p>\n\n

In the end, it's still a boring scene, but our view from the hotel was what it was.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Sigma “Bigma” 50-500mm OS @ 500 mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/6.3, ISO 800 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nReady To Check Out<\/span>\nduring the one bit of sun we had\n<\/div>\n\n

We had sun the second morning, but it was really cold (colder than Kyoto\nto the north) and very windy. You can see<\/span> patterns in the water in the\nsecond shot above, and the area of sudden blurring in the final shot...\nthose are the effects of localized wind gusts. It was pretty<\/span> to watch them\ndance across the water.<\/p>\n\n

Continued here...<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We took a short trip in the closing days of the year to Shoudoshima Island a few hours southwest of Kyoto (2.5 hours by car to Himeji, followed by two hours on a ferry). It's a small island (about 12 miles × 6 miles) in the Seto Inland Sea, west of the Awaji Island that we visit from time to time. Shoudoshima is known mostly for being the only place in Japan where olives are grown. It's extremely mountainous with the vast majority of its meager population sprinkled around the edges.<\/p>

Considering its \"near nowhere\" location, our hotel was the [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Considering its “near nowhere” location, our hotel was the improbably large and nice Hotel “Aqua”<\/a> situated in a tiny<\/span> fishing village below a dam.<\/span><\/p>\n\n