This was my first time back to 明治神宮 since New Year’s Day of 1989. It was much warmer and much less crowded on this day. One of these days I’ll head down there early in the morning when there are few people around to really enjoy the atmosphere.

Lest the above photo doesn’t impress (since you can’t tell how large this torii and these trees are without some sort of frame of reference) I’ll also present another angle, taken from six feet off of the ground looking upwards.

The sky was a photographer’s dream on this day. So far the sky in Japan this time of year has been mostly white. Completely blue can get a bit boring too. But this contrast of white and blue with the green of the trees and brown of the structures was heaven sent.

The photo above is of the gate to the inner sanctuary where the Meiji Emperor is enshrined. The picture below is of the inner sanctuary (内拝殿) itself. I didn’t see the sign saying you can’t take pictures of the inner sanctuary until after I snapped this one. Oops. If you look closely (perhaps after clicking on the image to make it larger) you can see the Shinto priest in white.

Posted on August 20th, 2009 under Japan. Tags: clouds, meiji jingu, shinto, skywatch, Tokyo, torii. Comments: 6

The visibility from Medford to San Francisco was excellent on this morning. I got some nice aerial shots of my town of Ashland that I’ll post at sometime in the future on my other blog.

The first picture today is of Mt. Shasta. Whether going to California from Ashland by car or by plane, seeing one of the many faces of Mt. Shasta is always a highlight.

I believe the above photograph is of Clair Eagle Lake. I couldn’t get over the views we were being treated with. No one else on the plane seemed to even care or to bother to look out their window. I’m like a small kid when I fly and the visibility is good. These scenes aren’t to be wasted with a nap, book, or other distractions.

I have some other decent aerial shots of Angel Island, Alcatraz, Candlestick Park, and some of the San Francisco Bay’s bridges, but I think this is one of the better ones of the city itself. I used to give city tours (in Japanese in the early 90s), including night tours that featured a stop on Treasure Island, the land mass to the immediate left of the island in the middle of the Bay Bridge in this picture.

South of San Francisco (we practically flew to San Jose before turning around to land at SFO) are these land masses filled with fun designs. I’m not sure what exactly the ground is here. Landfill? Marshes? Something else? In any event, the colors and patterns were even more amazing with the naked eye.

Posted on August 16th, 2009 under Other. Tags: aerial photography, clouds, Travel. Comments Off on MFR to SFO

The day that I had been anticipating for well over a year (returning to live in Japan for a year) finally arrived. It seemed as though it was always just a dream and something would prevent it from ever actually occurring, but somehow this day did come about. Needless to say, I didn’t need an alarm clock. I was up well before dawn due to excitement. After a shower, some more cleaning of my already clean, empty house, and other time passing activities the sun finally rose.

The above picture is of that last sunrise (for a year anyway) over Ashland, Oregon.

It was a beautiful morning in both Ashland and Medford, where our first plane was to depart from. The clouds were in fine form.

The above photo is from the “new” Medford airport which is a major upgrade over the old one. The former airport terminal is completely gone now. We had breakfast in the only restaurant past the security check point in the place, and this was the view. The old airport didn’t have any place to eat once you got past security which was not a good thing. I found that out on 9/11/01 when I was boarding a plane on that fateful morning. Needless to say, that plane wasn’t permitted to fly and many of us were stranded in the old airport.

My kids were as excited as I was. They’ve grown a lot since last year.

The fourth picture down on the preceding blog entry link reminded me of something about my daughter’s stuffed animal flight companion. She packed her “stuffy” in her backpack on this trip too. Her raccoon stuffed animal had a hard time making it through security. Security required her to take it out of the bag and then sent it through the x-ray machine again as if it was loaded with drugs or a weapon or something. We all had a good laugh over the treatment this piece of fluff received.

The scene from the air was no less stunning. I had a window seat on this flight. No such luck on the flight from SFO to NRT (Narita). The river you see is the Rogue River and the bluff is Table Rock. I’ll show you more photographs from the air tomorrow.

Posted on August 15th, 2009 under Oregon. Tags: ashland oregon, clouds, Oregon, people, skywatch. Comments Off on Departure (part 1)

Following the pattern, let’s turn things around again and do a reverse angle on yesterday’s shot. We’re not done yet with this theme. Guess what’s coming tomorrow?

Posted on May 30th, 2009 under Other. Tags: buildings, Chicago, clouds, skywatch. Comments Off on Sears Tower from US Cellular Field

I was killing time in Toronto driving around and spotted the above building from the freeway. I pulled off to get a closer look. The structure is quite amazing from a distance. I didn’t get too close. It appeared to be brand new with landscaping still being done around the perimeter.

Now that I think about it, I actually pulled off the freeway because I saw a sign that said something about the world’s largest flea market. It was in trying to find the flea market, which I never did, that I ended up at this location.

Posted on March 11th, 2009 under Other. Tags: buildings, canada, clouds. Comments: 2