Photos from Japan

黒アゲハチョウのように...誇らしい羽根で飛びたい

[scarreddragon]

[News] Site Updates, Files, Questions, and More

[News] Site Updates, Files, Questions, and More

Hi everyone! Thanks for your patience through this past year of no updates… I probably should have guessed that having a baby would be time consuming, but I never thought I wouldn’t even be able to get one new post up! Thankfully, things are finally calming down, she’s sleeping better, and I feel motivated to start posting again. So I’m hoping by next month to make a few posts here and there,…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Thanks for everyone’s help!  Complete 2017 collection!  (...I switched Aichi and Shizuoka, oops...)

[scarreddragon]

Rivalry Part 1: Niigata #3 - Uesugi Kenshin (上杉謙信)

Yamanashi vs Niigata: The rivalry of Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen

Postacollect Gotochi postcards usually depict famous goods, foods, or places, but of the 282 current cards, 10 feature famous people from the prefectures (11 if you count the folklore legend Momotaro from Okayama). My next posts will introduce two of these: Niigata’s Uesugi Kenshin (1530-1578) and Yamanashi’s Takeda Shingen (1521-1573). These two were both daimyo (warlords) in the Sengoku…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Rivalry Part 2: Yamanashi #2 - Takeda Shingen (武田信玄)

Rivalry Part 2: Yamanashi #2 – Takeda Shingen (武田信玄)

Once again if you didn’t see the last post, Uesugi Kenshin was the daimyo of Echigo province, and Takeda Shingen the daimyo of Kai Province, which are now the modern-day prefectures of Niigata and Yamanashi. I already detailed their rivalry yet honor toward each other in my last post. Takeda died before Uesugi, and it is said that Kenshin cried at the loss of such a warrior. His accomplishments…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Chiba #5: Edamame (枝豆)

Chiba #5: Edamame (枝豆) & #6: Boshu Fans (房州うちわ)

My my, where has time gone?! It’s already October, and I’ve missed two weeks of posting! Recently I went to Tokyo for an interview. I barely took any pictures, but I did manage to make my way into Chiba for a brief visit in order to buy two postcards I’m missing. Chiba is a prefecture that everyone knows of, being right next to Tokyo, but is totally and completely eclipsed by it. If you’ve ever…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Tochigi #3: Gyoza (餃子)

Tochigi #3: Gyoza (餃子)

I had a huge crisis deciding which Tochigi post to write first. On one hand, the fall colors of Nikko are probably pretty much over by now, and I wanted to post about the colors when you could still see them, but on the other, the Gyoza festival was last weekend and it is definitely over even though I’m posting about it now. Decisions, decisions. I finally went with Irohazaka since you can only…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Tochigi #4 - Ashigaka Gakkou (史跡足利学校)

Tochigi #4 – Ashigaka Gakkou (史跡足利学校)

I’ve been focusing a lot on Tochigi lately, and here is yet another Tochigi postcard, this one featuring the famous Ashikaga School in Ashikaga, Tochigi. Ashikaga Gakkou is Japan’s oldest university, most likely founded in the ninth century, then restored in 1432 by Uesugi Norizane, who imported many Chinese books and brought the school to it’s highest prestige. During the Meiji Period, the…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Akita #1: Namahage (なまはげ)

Akita #1: Namahage (なまはげ)

Only a few more days until 2015, and I can’t believe the year has gone so fast! Today’s postcard takes us up north to Akita prefecture, whose Namahage demons come out on New Year’s Eve looking for all the children who have been lazy during the year. Will the Namahage come for you? I’m pretty sure I’m out of luck! Like Namahage? This is a great site with lots of information on the origins and…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

[News] 2017 Cards Announced!

[News] 2017 Cards Announced!

Great news! Today the 2017 cards were announced! They will be sold from August 17th here in Japan, and there are 2 important changes to note this year: Point 1: The area the cards are sold has been expanded, so each prefecture is assigned to a smaller region, and within that region you can get all prefecture’s cards. For example, the Tohoku region includes Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata,…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

[News] Photo Hosting Issues

[News] Photo Hosting Issues

Hi all! I’m sorry there’s been no updates on my end for a long time. I was actually planning to get back into the swing of things when…. Photobucket, the site I PAY to use to host all the photos on here (and my other blogs) has pulled the rug out from under their customers feet and banned third party hosting (so the images you see on this blog for instance) unless you pay a ridiculous amount for…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

[Site News] Updates

… or lack thereof. Sorry everyone, I’ve currently got a 6-week old who is taking up 110% of my time and attention, and I just don’t have a chance to write or post right now. I’m hoping this will slowly change, and I want to assure everyone I haven’t forgotten about this blog, nor am I abandoning it! It’s just usually between “do I write a blog post, or do I do laundry, or do I take a nap?” and…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

Tochigi #5: Mashiko Pottery (益子焼) My sincerest apologies for the long wait for a new post. I'm afraid that I wont be much better at updating from here on out, but I shall try not to let too much longer go between posts!

[scarreddragon]

WLJT: Day 31 (Itoigawa)

WLJT: Day 31 (Itoigawa)

My last WLJT blog post! I woke up early in order to be in Itoigawa by 9AM. I didn’t need to actually be there until late afternoon, but the day sounded so interesting and I was so close (only an hour or so away) that I asked if I could join in with Emma’s last day on the job. I got the OK… as long as I didn’t show up in any of her pictures! It was nice to wander around without the pressure of…

View On WordPress

[catgifcentral]

Allowing Older Cat a Place in the Sun

[scarreddragon]

This is freaky... these two cats look EXACTLY like my cats except the orange one has more white on his thigh.  I’ve even got that box thing.  I had to go ask my husband, “Do you have a tumblr?!”  @_@ crazy!

[scarreddragon]

WLJT: Day 30 (Lake Kizaki)

WLJT: Day 30 (Lake Kizaki)

To make up for yesterday’s post, todays is full of pictures that I wish I had been able to include in my official blog post and just had way too many pictures to be able to add all of them. So take a look at the explanation of the art around Lake Kizaki and my day there, and then here are a bunch more pictures from the day!

Lake Kizaki, the unassuming center of a huge primitive art movement

A…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

WLJT: Day 29 (Omachi)

WLJT: Day 29 (Omachi)

Sooo… the thing is, I live in Gunma. I passed right by my house (on the highway anyway) when I drove to Minakami, and would pass it again on my way to my next destination. And Since my next stop in Nagano was only about 2 hours away and I’ve been sorta everywhere around the area already, instead of sightseeing somewhere, I stopped by my house to drop stuff off and ended up napping with my cat…

View On WordPress

[scarreddragon]

WLJT: Day 28 (Minakami)

WLJT: Day 28 (Minakami)

My time in Minakami was spent exploring just a small sample of the outdoor activities of the area, Canoeing and Canyoning. I borrowed a waterproof camera for most of the wet stuff (so most of the day), therefore the pictures are adequate but not great. Anyway, you can see the best ones on my official blog post here on the WLJT page. Here are a few extra pictures I took with my main camera:

La…

View On WordPress