TEMPUSMASTER PHOTOGRAPHY

Nagoya - Day 5: Meiji Mura Museum

We spent our fifth and final day in the Nagoya area visiting the Meiji Mura Museum near Inuyama. I expected to see a collection of buildings built during the Meiji era, but what we found was a rich and broad slice of what life must have been like during that time. Each and every building has a story to tell. They are full of period furnishings, exhibits, and extremely knowledgeable docents that have a real connection with the period. We arrived just before the gates opened at 9:30 am and stayed until they closed at 4:00 pm. And we only managed to cover about a third of the exhibits! We're already making plans to go back again next year to see the rest including things like the original Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and the operating steam locomotives.

Click on this link to see the photos from our day at Meiji Mura: http://isobe.typepad.com/photos/meiji_mura_museum. As usual, you'll find a couple of "Hello Kitty" photos included also...

Here are a few samples from our Meiji Mura adventure -

Nagoya Day 4: NHK Trophy Figure Skating Competition

The centerpiece of our fourth day in Nagoya was the annual NHK Trophy Figure Skating Competition featuring the top skaters from all over the world. It was the last day of the event so I was able to take photos of both the final men's competition, and the overall exhibition. To view the photos click here: http://isobe.typepad.com/photos/nhk_trophy_2004/.

Here are a couple of samples-

Day 4 & 5 - Just a moment please

 Our fourth and fifth days in Nagoya went better than expected, and resulted in a wealth of great photos. So, it's going to take a few days for me to sort through them, pick out the best, do the normal adjustments and cropping, and post them. In the meantime, here's a couple of samples-

Day 3 - Atsuta Shrine, Nagoya

Another beautiful, and very busy day. I took the train down to Atsuta Shrine, one of the most popular in Japan, and spent most of the afternoon walking around the grounds. Lots of families, children in traditional kimono, several wedding ceremonies, and booths selling toys for the parents and grandparents to buy for the kids. As usual, Hello Kitty and Pooh were the main toy themes. Both of their images decorated everything from bags of cotton candy, pinwheels, water whistles, and even sponge cakes. Later in the day I took the Coca Cola train (no kidding!) to the city center to check out the downtown area. Life is full of surprises, so I wasn't amazed when I found a pink Ford Edsel as one of the featured items at a show focused on "Good Design." All of the photos from todays adventures are located here: http://isobe.typepad.com/photos/nagoya_atsuta_shrine/index.html.

Day 2 - Nagoya Castle

The great fall weather continued today, so I took the subway from our hotel over to Nagoya Castle. Besides the normal tour of the castle grounds, there was also a bonsai and crysanthumum exhibit being held. The mums were some of the biggest and most beautiful I've ever seen. The biggest were about the size of my head - or even larger, if that's possible. I've included a few of the photos below, and put a collection of the best shots in an album here: http://isobe.typepad.com/photos/nagoya_castle/index.html

Mount Fuji - November 4, 2004

The NHK Trophy Figure Skating competition is being held in Nagoya this year, so my wife and I decided to take a few days vacation to attend. I'll be spending most of the time doing sight-seeing around Nagoya while she watches the skaters. I will take some skating photos on the last day of the competition and will, of course, post them here by early next week. Here are some of the photos I took on the train this afternoon coming from Tokyo to Nagoya:

A doting father giving his son an aerial view on the Shinkansen (bullet train.)

It was pretty hazy as we traveled down the coast on the Shinkansen, but as we got close to Mount Fuji the haze cleared up. I used a polarizer to take these photos. Unfortunately when I adjusted it to a better image of Fuji, the window reflections were objectionable, and when I adjusted it to eliminate the reflections Fuji's image didn't look as good. Keep in mind that all these photos were taken from the train window while we were speeding towards Nagoya at over 120 mph.

This was taken while we were still in the low foothills, just before we hit the coastline. The green rolling hills were a great counterpoint to Fuji, but because of the power transmission lines that run parallel to the train tracks I had to delete about 70% of the photos as unusable. Thankfully I use a digital camera and not film.

Here's a better view without the power lines.

By this point we've hit the coast and are traveling through a pretty heavily industrialized area.

"Welcome" Fuji... There are numerous tool and die companies in this area that are part of the supply chain for Toyota and other Japanese car makers.

As fast as the train was going it wasn't long before Fuji was fading into the distance behind us. Another few minutes and it was out of sight completely.