Shimoda Part 1

Took a road trip down to the town of Shimoda, a small town at the bottom of the Izu penninsula. Wasn't exactly sure what to expect out there, but I was pleasantly surprised with the town, the landscape, the beaches, and more importantly the surf.
Much of the landscape reminded me of a mix of big sur, carmel, and hawaii, only without all of the sharks and angry locals.


Not my photo, this is a screenshot from google earth, a great way to scout out new areas.


Driving north through Shizuoka, Fuji-san towers over most of the surrounding landscape. This is not a great photo of Fuji but I had to grab a quick pic of the view from gas station along the main highway.


View from rest stop #1.


View from rest stop #2. After a 5 hour drive I was ready to run straight down the cliff and into the water asap.


Shirahama, lit "white beach" was the first stop. Small waves and prevailing offshore wind.


I can add this one to my collection of ill-posed photos of me pulling into rock-wave-tube formations. Am I the only one who does this?


Offshore 1-foot perfection at Shirahama.


Our pension, "Island Avenue", great views, great food, close to the beach, perfect!



Downtown Shimoda shop.



Iritahama beach exploring.


Course #4 of a 5-course dinner, and Kirin # 823 of the weekend.



Nice afternoon surf at Ohama beach, there are a variety of nooks and crannies for waves to sneak in and do their thing, this is just one of them.



Me on the leftbowl looking to perform an "action"

Spring has Sprung

Has it been a month since my last post? Seems like yesterday...
Don't go any further if you dislike the color yellow at all.

The weather is warming and the fields are blossoming here in Japan, in the next few weeks we will see the sakura trees begin to blossom, for now we have these wild yellow flowers of which I don't know the name.




I wasn't the only one getting my flower photographing on, I counted about 30 people with cameras of all shapes and sizes, along with lenses, tripods, straps, memory cards etc. This field was very well documented this day.









The owners of the field built a handy scaffolding to give everyone a better view, from a distance it resembled a boat with passengers floating on the field.





One interesting thing I noticed was the the industrial gravel pit located a few feet from the field. Everything seemed serene and peaceful as long as you were looking away from the gravel pit.



My retinas were burning after a solid dose of bright yellow for an hour, so I hiked the trail around the lake and reacquainted myself with some old camera tricks.


Vertigo looking up into the tree tops.

Checking to see if my on-camera flash still works. Yep.