Udon with beef

I had two nights in Kyoto last summer. I asked my innkeeper for a recommendation of a fun izakaya in the (Nijo Station) neighborhood and she recommended Daruma (908 Koyamacho, Kamigyo Ward, Kyoto). She was correct. Daruma was tons of fun. Both of the Mama Sans and the customers were entertaining. Pictures coming soon.

So the next day I asked her for a similar place and she recommended Saiya. With kanji like 祭家, how could it not be a party? Well, it wasn’t as fun as Daruma, but the family running the place were baseball diehards so we did have fun chatting about baseball while watching games on the TV.

Posted on June 7th, 2014 under Japan. Tags: beer, food, izakaya, kyoto, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Saiya (祭家) in Kyoto

jpg version

I was going through and deleting some photos from last summer when I came upon the photo above. I almost hit delete, but I was curious what the photo was even of so I decided to take a peek at the RAW file before deleting.

This was the same photo in RAW format:

RAW version of same photo

At first I thought I had opened the wrong photo, but then I checked the file name and sure enough they were the same.

I took this while walking through the Okunoin Cemetery just after sunset. I didn’t have a tripod so I just set my camera on rocks or headstones to take long exposures. Obviously, this one @ 30 seconds wasn’t long enough for a jpg photo, but in RAW it almost looks properly exposed.

Posted on June 5th, 2014 under Japan. Tags: cemetery, koyasan 高野山, night photography, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600, okunoin japanese cemetery 奥の院, photography, photoshop, RAW vs Jpg jpeg, torii. Comments: 1

金魚屋 @ 日本ライン夏まつり納涼花火大会

Posted on June 3rd, 2014 under Japan. Tags: festivals, inuyama, matsuri, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Panning for gold… fish

Asano (tempura, sashimi, etc.) in Yanaka (Tokyo, Japan)

Back in 2007 I returned to Japan for the first time after a nearly 20 year absence. On our second night we ate at a Izakaya near our hotel called Asano (浅野 or あさの). When we lived in Japan in 2009 and 2010 we ate there again. But today’s photos come from last summer when I enjoyed my third meal there.

Asano owner, cook, and conversationalist

The owner is very friendly. He remembered me from each of my prior visits like any good Izakaya proprietor would.

Japanese tempura

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to partake again in the not-too-distant future.

Posted on May 31st, 2014 under Japan. Tags: food, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600, yanaka. Comments Off on Asano in Yanaka

Nijo Castle (二条城) Kyoto, Japan

Recently I’ve been reading Romulus Hillsborough’s Samurai Revolution which says that “Tokugawa Iemochi became the first shogun in more than two centuries to set foot in the Imperial Capital, staying at his castle, Nijojo, in the western part of the city.” (p. 226) As I walked through Nijo Castle last summer and saw the figurines depicting the shogun addressing all of the daimyo it never crossed my mind that such an event never, or at least seldom, took place. I pictured the scene to be something like an annual one or at least one that happened for most Shoguns, but I guess that wasn’t so. According to this page, 229 years passed between shogun visits to the shogun’s flatland castle in Kyoto.

Posted on May 27th, 2014 under Japan. Tags: kyoto, nijo castle, Nikon 24-120mm f/4 VR G lens, Nikon D600. Comments Off on Samurai Revolution