Kenrokuen Fall Light Up

A factor in the scheduling of my whole Asia trip was the dates of the Kenrokuen Fall Light up. Four times a year the famous Kenrokuen garden in Kanazawa is lit up for a weekend or two to showcase the season. Admission is free during the light up, and its a great way to see the garden in a new light, so to speak.



Of course, anything worth doing in Japan is worth doing by a whole lot of people, so be ready for crowds. I was far from the only person sporting a camera and tripod, and some of the prime spots had a bit of a line form for the photo. Though without a camera its nice to come and just see the lights and not worry about trying to get that perfect photo.



Every fall these rope supports are strung on some of the trees to protect them from the heavy, wet snow that blankets the area come December.



A musician and singer was playing in the boat house and being piped all over the gardens, lending a very peaceful and traditional feel to the proceedings. Despite the large numbers of people, once you got away from the entrance, the crowd really thinned out, giving room for just exploring the darkened garden on your own.



As you can see in some of the photos, by and large the weather was very clear, and the water was literally as still as glass. It did sprinkle a tiny bit for a few minutes, but it wasn't even enough rain for me to worry about my camera.



This was far from my first trip to Kenrokuen for a light up, but every time it seems so magical, it just never gets old.

Iris in Kenrokuen

So a couple of weeks ago Sachiko dropped by Kanazawa, and as she had never been to Kenrokuen in the Spring, we decided to meander around the garden a bit. Of course, being Ishikawa, it was overcast and threatening rain, but at least it wasn't too hot.



The iris were gorgeous, and really I must admit that I will miss this garden when I leave. It is so peaceful and beautiful, I can't even count the number of times I have been to Kenrokuen, and yet I always find something new and interesting when I go back.





Let's hear it for the 'hold the camera out' self portrait style. I knew I should have brought a tripod! ;-) Actually though, the pictures came out kind of nice!



After the garden we went to the 21st Century Museum of Art, and checked out the famous "swimming pool" installation piece. It was interesting enough, but neither of us have an eye for modern art.

Cherry Blossoms in Full Bloom

Last weekend was really the official start to Spring here in Japan, or at least, here in Kanazawa. The annual explosion of cherry blossoms is widely celebrated by spreading out a tarp and drinking beer and chu-hi at one in the afternoon. That is one part of the celebration I just can't really get behind. Drinking in the afternoon is, for me, a one way ticket to an early nap, and who wants to ruin their sunny Sunday napping?



One of my students made sure to point out that traditionally the Hanami parties were about viewing the beautiful flowers, and then translating that physical beauty into haiku. I think the poetry got lost on the way to the excessive alcohol consumption.



Which doesn't mean that the general idea isn't sound. Actually, gathering friends together to chat and cavort in fine spring weather is a fantastic idea. Get people outside and enjoying the fresh air for the first time since late November. Of course, being the psycho Photo-Boy that I am I had already gone to Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen the day before the schools Hanami Party. Most of Kanazawa joined me there, or so it seemed. Anything worth doing in Japan is worth doing by everybody!



The Sunday of the party dawned bright and clear, a rarity in Ishikawa. We had a few interlopers tho, one of the avian kind, and a couple of crazy kids.





One of my students brought her two delightful young children to the party. She told them about me before they arrived, so upon seeing me they both rushed at me yelling, "Grant-sensei!!!" They then spent an hour running round, rolling down the hill and generally making a mess of their clothing. A great time was had by all.



I then met up with some friends and we absconded to the Mexican place for a long overdue dinner of enchiladas and tacos. After that we headed back to Kenrokuen for the night lights. Despite having hundreds of megabytes of pictures from the garden at night I brought my camera and tripod, much to all the disgust of the girls.



Of course I promptly got separated from the group. It took a disgustingly long time to get back together, being it was pretty dark and really really crowded. Despite that, and the chilly April night, we had a good time, and the lights were a beautiful cap to a pretty good weekend.

Odds and Ends and a taste of Sakura in HDR

To start things off, here is a nice exterior shot of my new apartment building. It won't win any architectural awards, but I suppose there is something to be said for the functional modern box look.

I was glad last week that the aftershocks finally stopped waking me up. Seriously we had a pretty good number of aftershocks hitting the area at seven or eight in the morning. For a guy who works from one to ten this is incredibly annoying.

But this is Japan, so of course we had something new to wake me up hours before my alarm.



Mayoral elections! Hooray! Yup, Kanazawa got a new Mayor over the weekend, and in the days leading up to the elections the city was besieged by candidates speaker trucks. The super right wing fascist speaker trucks are pretty annoying, but relatively limited in number. But when you have a whole stack of candidates on the stump in a city the size of Kanazawa it can get pretty bad. Songs, announcements, bored looking pretty women waving a pedestrians. It seems a strange way to try and get people to vote for you. Hey, lets be really annoying and piss off the electorate! To be fair, I guess TV attack adds in the states are pretty bad too.



I'm not entirely sure, but I think this is the list of candidates. Oh, and with the election safely out of the way, I figured on a nice long sleep in this morning. Well, that was before the LP Man spent 30 minuted manhandling large, empty, loud LP bottles into his truck. It sounded like some crazy steel drum/ gong instrument. Argh!




The Cherry Blossoms are out this week, and it is much better than last year. Spring 2006 was really cold and rainy, and the flowers were late and strangely spread out. While Denver has been braving snow, Kanazawa's early April has been pretty nice during the day, though nights have been pretty frigid.

Ironically enough I hadn't intended to make any HDR images of the Sakura. After all, there isn't a High Dynamic Range to capture. Lucky me, I accidentally clicked on the wrong file name, and created the picture below.



For an 'accident' I really loved the strange 'glow' effect on the flowers, so I quickly fiddled with a few other pictures. While the original is still the best of the bunch, I think some of these look really great.



The effect is certainly very different, and while it won't supplant more traditional looking pictures anytime soon, I enjoy both creating and viewing HDR images. That said, I have to admit that while these look interesting and cool, the original images do look better, and will be posted soon.

Kanazawa Castle and Kenrokuen at Night

In a celebration of fall, both the castle grounds and Kenrokuen were lit up last weekend. I had a bit of time on Friday, and so I rode over with my tripod for some good old-fashioned nighttime photography. It was a very pleasent evening, slightly chill but not overly so. Soft music was playing in the background, and the grounds were shockingly devoid of people. I didn't have as much time in Kenrokuen as I wanted as I had to get back to work, but I wasn't too disapointed as I have seen the gardens at night a couple of times already. However, this was my first trip to the castle at night.

Kenrokuen in Fall

The weather last week started out cold, but by Thursday it was warm and sunny again. I took the opportunity to go back to Kenrokuen for the first time since late spring. While the leaves hadn't finished changing yet, I was lucky and caught the gardeners putting up the rope 'tents' that protect the trees from the heavy Ishikwawa snow.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Alright, so my third (and final, for a while) visitor arrived on Saturday. My dearest sister Liz flew complication free into Nagoya airport for a nice two and a half week vacation.

She was pretty fried from the trip over, so we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Yoshinoya and then toured a bit of Sakae really quickly. Exhaustion rapidly set in though, so I dropped her off at the hotel and then went to the pub with Jared and Andy to watch the first half of a big, big football game, Liverpool vs Westham United. Or something like that. The pub was absolutly jammed with every pasty faced British ex-pat in Nagoya, or so it seemed. They were certainly doing a landmark business in rather pricy pints. For the record, Liverpool (Red Team!) won.



Mostly refreshed the next morning we took advantage of the wonderful weather and went to check out Inuyama castle and the environs. Liz got a kick out of the tour of the oldest original castle in Japan, but was a bit worried about the combo of steep stairs, slippery wood flooring, and slick one size fits all slippers. It sure seems like a recipe for disaster, but we made it without mishap. Phew! We also caught sight of the worlds largest bull frog. You could have used him for a barge anchor, as long as he didn't swim away!



Back in Kanazawa today we (of course) went to... *drum roll please*... Kenroku-en! I can't even count how many times I have been there now, but honestly I seem to find something new and interesting each time. The changing seasons, and even changing weeks in the same season, offer a new view each time. The Iris were just starting to poke there heads up, and there are some really dense fields of them, I may have to go back later this week when they are really in full bloom.


Notice the wise old Samurai, talking on his cell phone!

In addition to flowers and trees and such, we also caught sight of a film production. Yup, the famous bridge and lantern was taken over by a shooting crew with actors all dressed up in Edo period finery. I have no idea what the movie is, but I want to see it when it comes out! We were not the only ones interested in the shoot, the usual horde of people looking at the lantern became a slightly larger horde looking at the film crew and actors. Certainly a pretty unique experience, I have seen lots of DVD documentaries, but this is the first time I've ever seen a period piece shoot. The girls were cute in their costumes too. ;-)