Day 8 - I'm leavin', on a midnight bullet train to Kyoto

Seven days after arriving in Tokyo, our group moved on to Kyoto for a change of scenery and pace. Where we had a hectic schedule in Tokyo early on with business meetings and obligations, we are free to do as we please for our stay in Kyoto. I can't begin to express how long I've waited to be able to go out on my own with no distractions and just shoot.

We went to Tokyo station to catch the bullet train to Kyoto. It's not nearly as busy as the subway but we were all carrying our luggage so the escalators were challenging.



The train itself is quite impressive. It can travel speeds of up to 200km per hour and actually looks more like a jet than anything else.


It was interesting to see how fast everything was going by as we sped through the city. I got lucky and captured our reflection in the windows on a passing building.


When we arrived in Kyoto, the weather was not in our favor. Much like back home, it was raining quite a bit. We checked in to our hotel, The Three Sisters Annex, a traditional Japanese inn. The beds are actually mattresses on the floor, which feels a lot more comfortable than it looks.


Although it was raining, I was not going to let an opportunity get away to go photograph a shrine. As I was leaving, Kay, one of the nicest ladies I've met in Japan so far and our sort of house mom would not let me leave without a map, directions back and an umbrella. I refused the umbrella and told her I would be alright because it was only sprinkling. BIG MISTAKE. (more on that later)

After about ten minutes of walking, trying to figure out where the shrine is, the rain gets heavier. I turned a corner and saw these huge red pillars jutting out of the the skyline above the trees. By now I'm starting to regret not grabbing the umbrella when I had the chance. No matter, I start shooting to my hearts content..








... that is until it starts raining even harder and I realize that there is very little cover at the shrine. After much deliberation and swallowing of pride, I purchased an umbrella at the gift shop. The shrine is called the Heian Shrine and was built in 1895.


Now that I had an umbrella, I was able to go into the shrine gardens to see if there were any good locations to shoot. I'll let you be the judge on whether I found one or not.





You can certainly see how much it's raining in some of these pictures. I was drenched by the time I was done but very pleased with the outcome.














I think there may be some keepers. :)

Epilogue - As soon as I got back to the room, I plugged the compact flash card from my camera into my iPad to see how the images came out on a larger screen. "Card corrupted, cannot read files." WHAT?!? I insert the card back into the camera and I get a card read error, please format the card. Oh no!! To make a long story short, Ian was gracious enough to lend me his laptop and after about seven hours of work, I was able to recover most if not all of the files. I guess it pays to be a "computer genius," as my kids call me, sometimes.

- Tony Llerena Photography

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Day 7 - Play ball!

Today was our first full free day and final day in Tokyo. The group got together and thought it would be fun to go see a baseball game in Japan. Tokyo is home to the Yomiuri Giants, traditionally one of the best teams in the league. I left my camera at the hotel because I didn't want to risk not being able to enter the game with it. I was able to capture a couple of shots and a video using my iPhone.

The game itself was kind of slow. The first run wasn't scored until the top of the 7th inning. The best part of the entire game was hearing the crowds chanting and clapping little plastic bats together. It's unlike anything I've ever seen at a sporting event before. Check it out for yourself in the video below. Other than the game, all we did was laundry and pack in preparation for the bullet train and Kyoto tomorrow. Looking forward to it.









- Tony Llerena Photography

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Day 6 - The wheels on the bus go round and round

We were off to another early start this morning. Mt. Fuji is about 2 hours away driving and apparently many other folks in the country had the same idea as we did. Traffic was heavy. It was a beautiful day and our first glimpses of Fuji-no-Yama (ふじの山) were absolutely breath taking. Because of the haze, the only part of Fuji that is visible from a distance is the snow covered top. The view makes it seem as if the top of the mountain is floating in the sky.

Fuji is the spiritual center and often times symbol of Japan. I can certainly see why. I believe it would be impossible for someone to see the mountain for the first time and not be in absolute awe of her grandiose beauty. I feel very fortunate to have been able to see this first hand. Because of the traffic and our tight schedule, we were only able to stop for about 30 minutes for lunch to observe Fuji. It's suffice to say that I did not eat and spent every last second trying to capture the beauty with my camera that I was seeing with my eyes.









The most memorable moment for me at Fuji was meeting an elderly couple who was also photographing the mountain. The gentleman had a Mamiya medium-format camera mounted on a tripod so high that he needed a ladder to look through the view finder. His wife had a 5DmkII which is the camera that I use. I tried striking up a conversation with them using my limited Japanese language skills and unbelievably we were able to understand each other.

The art of photography is it's own form of language. I showed them some of the images I had captured and they told me one of the only English words they knew, beautiful. He was gracious enough to allow me to look through the view finder of his Mamiya and what I saw was an absolutely striking image of Fuji, artfully composed in a way that I was attempting but couldn't quite realize. As I said goodbye, I said arigato sensei and both he and his wife smiled widely. I still have a lot to learn. I could have stayed here the entire day and probably many more but I know that there are many more beauties in Japan waiting for me to see.

It took several more hours to reach our next destination, a family tea farm and castle named Ninomaru Chashitsu in Kakegawa. It was interesting to see how they harvest the tea leaves. Apparently the cut only the tops of the shrubs so it looked like there were several rows that had just recently gotten a buzz cut. The farmers are able to harvest three times in a season. We next went to the factory where they process the leaves through an intricate drying process. Finally we traveled to Ninomaru Chashitsu to sample some of the finished product at a traditional tea ceremony, my first.





This is Mai, Keiko's niece. She was too cute and we later found out at karaoke, a spectacular singer. She reminded me of my kids so I enjoyed her being around.


These are the steps leading up to Ninomaru Chashitsu.


Ninomaru Chashitsu was actually really nice. They had some nice gardens that we were able to walk in and enjoy.


The tea ceremony was interesting. It was my first time trying freshly brewed green tea. There are actually two little tea pots, the second one with boiling water had not arrived yet in this image. The bowl in the middle is actually a cooling bowl.





Here's our group trying to figure out exactly what we're supposed to do. Luckily we had some help.





Here's Mai again. I think she been photographed before. She knew exactly what to do and smiled right on cue.








Our evening ended with karaoke in Roppongi. I've never done that before and let me just tell you, if you haven't, you've got to try it. They have individual rooms that you rent out so that you're only singing to friends and family meanwhile food and drink appears magically on the table while you're singing the chorus to Fire and Rain by James Taylor.

Next stop, free day and the Tokyo Giants baseball game.

- Tony Llerena Photography

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