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Inside Tokyo Opera City during Christmas season
There is no Black Friday in Japan since there is no Thanksgiving. However, that doesn’t stop the Japanese from having Christmas decorations up before the end of November like in this photo.
亮朝院門
I walked by this Ryochoin (亮朝院) Buddhist Temple gate on the way from my apartment to Waseda University on many occasions.
The full name of the place is 如意山 亮朝院 栄亮寺 and the address is 新宿区西早稲田3-16-24.
紅葉 - Japanese Maple leaves cover the ground
Tis’ the season. The characters for Japanese Maple (紅葉 or もみじ or momiji) are the exact same for autumn colors (こうよう or kooyoo).
I took today’s photo on my Nikon D7000 with a cheap 50mm f/1.8 lens. At the widest aperture of 1.8 you can get this effect of focus only on the leaf in the center of the photo.
金泉湯 ads on lanterns at Japanese festival
Japanese characters (kanji) on lanterns all look pretty cool to foreign eyes. When you can actual read the characters, though, the ones advertising places like 金泉湯 (Golden Spring Baths–a Japanese Sento or public bath) seem much cooler–and much more Japanese–than those advertising a local doctor’s office or McDonald’s.
Sadly, I never visited 金泉湯 (Kinsento), even though I walked past it a million times. I guess this is yet another reason why I need to go back to Tokyo one of these days. While the onsen (hot springs) establishments in Japan will never disappear, the number of sento are continually decreasing, and they could go extinct. I hope 金泉湯 is still around for my next visit.
I took today’s photo in Kamakura because of the cool-looking, old-style, Japanese building. This kind of architecture isn’t as common as it once was, but you can still find it, even in big cities.
Based on the sign in the lower left corner of the picture, you can buy specialty (microbrewery) beer here. Kamakura Beer (鎌倉ビール) appears to offer a variety of beers. I never saw Kamakura Beer, or other microbrews, for sale at most locations in Japan. Usually, stores offered a wide variety of beer that tasted pretty much the same (boring lagers). If this liquor store is closed when you visit Kamakura, you can buy from the vending machine out front (lower right part of pic). Now that is something you won’t find in most other parts of the world.
西海子小路 in 小田原市
Wrong season, I know, but my random desktop image generator doesn’t care about picking the correct season. When this photo came up I was curious as I didn’t remember taking it. Why? Because I didn’t. My wife took this on her walk with TIS friends in Odawara during the cherry blossom season. Luckily she caught the name of the street in the lower left portion of the picture. This is 西海子小路 (さいかちこうじ or saikachikoji), near Odawara Station and Odawara Castle. This part of Odawara is one of the more famous places in Japan to view sakura.