Photographs from a small group of islands
After numerous failed forays to Fuji in an attempt to get one of those perfect postcard-like pictures — one of which witnessed a group of tourists on a whistle-stop tour of Japan resorting to taking a photo of a photo of the then mist covered mountain — it was finally fifth time lucky, with absolutely wonderful weather.
A pity then that the end results weren’t quite so sublime.
Merely passable.
At a push.
(click images for more ample-sized averageness)
Despite its close proximity and mammoth size, the conical completeness of Mount Fuji was almost totally obscured by cloud — meaning a shot of this nearby water-surrounded shrine had to suffice.
(click image for larger lakeside loveliness)
Wet and warm weather in central Tokyo it seems makes for murky and misty mornings around the metropolis’ western outskirts.
With amazingly no visitors or even a vending machine in sight.
(click images for magnified mistiness)
Quite what the placing of coins on various parts of the foot is supposed to achieve is unclear.
Good health perhaps?
(click image for, ahem, big foot)
The properly done foreground-in-focus-and-background-not-quite effect still eludes me, with this being the best I can muster.
Still, it’s pleasantly peaceful despite the paucity of proficiency.
I think.
(click image for poorer pagoda pic)
Whilst spring may be just around the corner, even roadside figures (Jizo) still need protection against the elements.
The offered toys however are rather more significant, as a Jizo’s role — among other things — is to watch over the souls of dead and unborn children; the deity having the unenviable task of spending the majority of his time in Meido (the land of gloom) protecting his flock from nearby demons.
Yet perhaps helping to lighten his burden somewhat, the Jizo is also a protector of travelers, and as such, some people believe that lotus flowers spring from the ground wherever he steps. A notion that arguably takes a little of the sorrow from his doleful gaze, and also helps make up for the well-intentioned-but-aesthetically-unpleasing plastic bottle vases.
