flashes and clicks
fotologue.jp may be the best designed of all of the photo blog sites i've seen. I was using flickr for awhile, but only for pictures I took with my cell phone. Fotologue is one of those sites that could make me spend way too much time on the internet.
I spent a night north of my city in a town called Wakami with a pal. He recently proclaimed in our monthly newsletter that his was "the crappest town in the whole of Japan," and I guess I can see where he's coming from. I think we saw maybe 4 people in the whole 24 hours we spent in Wakami, and 3 of them worked at convenience stores. Snow coated rice fields surround his house in every direction and the temperature indoors was actually much colder than outside for most of the day yesterday. Yesterday's high in Akita was -2 degrees Celcius. Still, though, it was a nice treat to be able to get out of town for a night, and we caught the Namahage Sedo Festival, which featured a bonfire and demons who stole children at random from the crowd and ran around the temple grounds with them, all the while holding flaming torches in their hands as well. Japan is a very safe and calculated place in many respects, but when they decide to get crazy, like with some of these festivals, it really is amazing.
I spent a night north of my city in a town called Wakami with a pal. He recently proclaimed in our monthly newsletter that his was "the crappest town in the whole of Japan," and I guess I can see where he's coming from. I think we saw maybe 4 people in the whole 24 hours we spent in Wakami, and 3 of them worked at convenience stores. Snow coated rice fields surround his house in every direction and the temperature indoors was actually much colder than outside for most of the day yesterday. Yesterday's high in Akita was -2 degrees Celcius. Still, though, it was a nice treat to be able to get out of town for a night, and we caught the Namahage Sedo Festival, which featured a bonfire and demons who stole children at random from the crowd and ran around the temple grounds with them, all the while holding flaming torches in their hands as well. Japan is a very safe and calculated place in many respects, but when they decide to get crazy, like with some of these festivals, it really is amazing.