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Sunset at Cherry Blossom festival

JapanDave — Mon, 03 May 2010 02:01:11 +0000

Today’s photo is a wide shot of the Oto river in Okazaki. This was taken towards the end of the blossoms, so many had already fallen. But you can still see a few on either side of the river. You can also make out the lights among them. Typically, most cities light up the blossoms at night. We call them yozakura when lit up this way. Some places go all out and use tons of lights, making the tree glow.

To say cherry blossoms are a big deal in Japan would be an under-statement. Every year between February and April, Japan turns white and pink. The white ones (soimeyoshino / 染井吉野 / そめいよしの) are the most popular. These bloom in late March/early April in Honshu (the main island of Japan) and line up nicely with the beginning of the school year. Because of this, many Japanese see the blossoms as the start of the new year.

The someiyoshino is actually a fairly recent variety, being developed in the mid to late 19th century. Despite this, someiyoshino have become so deeply associated with cherry blossoms that most movies and books of old Japan feature them, even though they didn’t exist at the times these works of fiction show!

As always, click on the photo for a larger version, and go to my flickr page to grab the full resolution version if you want it. Also, read more on someiyoshino and cherry blossoms in general from wikipedia.

Photo of the week: Mejiro on cherry tree

JapanDave — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 05:38:49 +0000

These pink cherry trees are called kawazu-zakura. They are very popular in Izu, but not so much in the rest of the country — not as much as the white (someiyoshino) ones anyways. I happen to prefer these over the white variety.

The bird is called a mejiro. I think it is a Japanese White-Eye in English, although I’m not 100% sure on that. They are small and very fast and don’t sit in one place very long. I don’t have a tripod and my lens was zoomed to the max, so holding it steady while chasing them was a challenge. I got lucky with this shot.

As always, you can find a full resolution version over on my flickr page.

Photo of the week: Sakura along the Oto River

JapanDave — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:45:05 +0000

Let’s try something new here. I take lots of photos and occasionally post them on this blog. I want to post them more often, so I’m going to put myself on a schedule here. Every week I’ll post a photo of the week. Today being Tuesday, let’s make the day for the photo of the week post every Tuesday. If I can keep this up, I may increase it to a few times a week. Baby steps, eh?

This one below is taken from the Oto River. The river is lined with cherry trees. I’ve been told there are over 1000 trees. It doesn’t seem like nearly that many to me, but then again, there are a lot of them. When they bloom, the entire river is white and pink.

Be sure to click through to Flickr if you want the full-resolution version.

Peaceful field

JapanDave — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:26:11 +0000

Near my apartment there is a large area filled with rice fields. It’s a relatively peaceful and quiet area, so is fairly popular with residents as an area to “get away from the city”, or at least pretend we are getting away. When the rice plants grow up but before the rice starts coming out at the top, they look very similar to giant blades of grass and will gently sway to and fro with the wind. The overall effect of this is very pleasant and adds to the feeling of peace.

There are always a lot of people walking around enjoying the atmosphere of the place so it is sometimes a challenge to get a photo without anyone in it, but sometimes I get lucky. Here’s one I rather liked from this past fall. I have versions of this photo with the camera at ground level so as to better capture the rice, but for some reason I liked this one the most. Can’t really say why, just do. Enjoy!