I miss the Tokyo skyline (and other images of Japan)

Exactly a year ago I was in Japan. I visited some amazing places, saw some amazing sights and took a ridiculous number of pictures. I managed to edit them down to 358 at the time, but that's rather more than most sane people were willing to look at (although bonus points for those who humoured me). Anyway, a year on, here's some of my favourite pictures and memories from my trip to another world.


My first day in Tokyo - tourists taking pictures of cats sitting in a cherry tree in Ueno Park. I knew I had arrived in Japan.


Gardens next to Ginza


Shinto Wedding at Meiji Shrine


Hasedera Temple - the hundreds of tiny statues are placed by parents mourning lost children


Hakone Open Air Museum - like Yorkshire Sculpture Park but better


Wise advice


View of Mount Fuji from the shinkensen (bullet train)


Apprentice Geisha - happy to pose for pictures


Cat cafe - definitely the strangest experience of my time in Japan, not least because sadomasochistic Japanese cats seem to prefer being slapped to stroked


Children's Peace Monument, Hiroshima. The statue features, Sadoko, who died from radiation poisoning following the atomic bomb, together with a crane representing the thousands of cranes she and others folded to call for peace


Style spotting in Harajuku


(I miss the) Tokyo skyline...


Music shopping - I bought the new album by The London Suede


Bowie cafe in the Sony building


Feeling a bit of out of place (like Bill Murray) in the New York Bar, Park Hyatt Hotel


The cherry blossom came early for me

If you still want more, the full collection is on flickr!

Spring snaps

Walking to work the other day I noticed how many different signs of spring there were, even in this relatively built-up area... probably a lot of them only seen by those of us moving at a slower pace along the footpaths, peering through fences... So was inspired to take the camera out today too and capture the remnants of the blossom in between the April showers. Taken lazily with the 'flower' setting on my Fujifilm FinePix F100fd. A few more on flickr x