2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Miyajima and Hiroshima

Apr 26 | Evan | Comments Off on 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Miyajima and Hiroshima |

Before evening returning from the the 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, I received a few inquiries about the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan!  If you are looking for that information, the details of the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan can be found here.

After spending a few days in Tokyo we took our chartered bus from the hotel in Shibuya to Shinagawa Station for the first ride on the bullet train of this tour of Japan.  I love riding the shinkansen and find it relaxing and much less stressful than flying or taking a car.  The one way trip from Tokyo to Miyajima takes over 5 hours and included bus, train and ferry!  Especially since it was raining the entire time our group was transferring, the trip worked out fine and was well worth the time spent in transit through Japan!

Like with Tokyo, cherry blossoms blooming earlier than normal, hard rain and strong winds limited cherry blossoms still intact in Miyajima and Hiroshima, but it’s still a beautiful place…. even if we did have mostly cloudy, rainy and misty weather for our stay in Miyajima!

 

Part of the group did take some time during the day to visit nearby Hiroshima and Peace Park.  The museum is under renovation, but about half of it was open.  After that we made sure to eat some Hiroshima Okonomiyaki, which I love love love!

All the photos below are courtesy of and created by 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan participant, Gavin Everson:

Want to see more photos from the 2015 Cherry Blossom Photography Tour of Japan?  The group tour also went to Tokyo, Himeji Castle, Kyoto and some of us to The Fuji Five Lakes close to Mt. Fuji.  Stay tuned for more photos from the escorted tour of Japan!

2015 Cherry Blossom Group Tour of Japan | Tokyo

Apr 25 | Evan | No Comments |

Before evening returning from the the 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan, I received a few inquiries about the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan!  If you are looking for that information, the details of the 2016 Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan can be found here.

Like every trip to Japan, the 2015 Cherry Blossom Tour went by too fast! Even though the weather was not great for traveling around Japan (I think in 2 weeks I saw the sun on 3 days at best and somebody forgot to tell Japan that it was Spring and not still Winter)…. and in some cities the cherry blossoms bloomed too early for us to catch the peak bloom of the sakura, we had a great time, made new friends, ate delicious (and too much) Japanese food, experienced the culture and we were able to make some nice photos!

This guided tour of Japan started out in Tokyo, with the tour participants flying into Japan from 4 different countries on 3 different days. Tokyo was the perfect place to meet and wait while the entire group was getting settled in Japan. I arrived in Tokyo first, just as the cherry blossoms had hit their peak, only to see the next two days bring rain and extreme winds which are both devastating to the fragile cherry blossoms…sigh… But that didn’t stop us having a portrait session in Shinjuku Gyoen with Manami in her kimono! It was a great portrait session in Tokyo, but she was too popular with everyone else in the park as well! She was great about it and so kind to let every take her photo!

Due to cherry blossoms blooming a few days earlier than the average and the weather not cooperating, we didn’t get too many cherry blossom photos in Tokyo, but still managed to get some photos close to peak around Tokyo!  Also, as the sakura petals are falling off, the cherry blossom petals can make for some quite beautiful photos as well!

The first night we were all together, I had arranged with a friend of mine in Tokyo to introduce some Japanese families to our group! We had dinner together in a (really dark-sorry photo is so as well) restaurant in Shibuya and it was a great cultural exchange for our group visiting Japan and for the Japanese friends to meet travelers. If you are visiting Tokyo and want to make some Japanese friends over a meal, here is the facebook page my friend started for cultural exchange in Tokyo.

Other highlights of our days in Tokyo were a cooking lesson in a Japanese home and visiting an early morning sumo practice! All really great experiences in Tokyo for some nice memories!

Want to see more photos from the 2015 Cherry Blossom Photography Tour of Japan?  The group tour also went to Miyajima, Hiroshima, Himeji, Kyoto and some of us to The Fuji Five Lakes close to Mt. Fuji.  Stay tuned for more photos from the escorted tour of Japan!

 

2014 Summer and Fall Tours of Japan

May 09 | Evan | No Comments |

Japan Photo Guide is excited to announce 2 opportunities to experience Japan in 2014! In June and July of 2014 there is limited availability of short day tours or photography/portrait sessions in Japan. Whether in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hokkaido, Miyajima or someplace else, please contact me about what you want to do in Japan this summer!

The next option is a small group tour to Japan in Autumn of 2014! This will be an small group (maximum of 9 plus me) tour of Japan including Tokyo, Miyajima, Takeda Castle Ruins and Kyoto and the surrounding areas like Nara and Arashiyama. The tour will have a photography focus, but there will also be plenty of cultural and other experiences that you don’t have to be a photographer to enjoy, so partners/friends are welcome (and will get to sleep in while we up early for good light)! Even though it is a group tour, the trip to Japan will still be customized for participants to get the most out of it! Hope to see you in Japan!

Cherry Blossom Tour of Japan | Maiko Portrait Session

Apr 20 | Evan | No Comments |

The 2014 cherry blossom tour of Tokyo and Kyoto  in Japan had been going great and filled with special experiences so far.  When planning this trip to Japan, one of the experiences I was most excited about was this portrait session with a real maiko!  A maiko is an apprentice geisha or geiko as they are referred to in Kyoto.  Many westerners think that these women are prostitutes, but this is not the case (and has not been for quite some time).  Maiko, geisha or geiko are really entertainers that not only must know how to perform songs and dance, but also how to social interact and talk with high ranking politicians and members of elite society.  For more information about maiko, geisha, geiko and their history, the wikipedia page is a good place to start.

To schedule time with a maiko is not so easy.  First, you have to know somebody with a connection.  I had a few interactions with maiko and geiko, and because of my experience with some geisha houses and my Japanese, I could have scheduled something by myself, but like many things in Japanese culture, the most direct way is not always the best.  So even for me,  the best way for me to arrange time with one is to go through one of my connections in Kyoto.  Even if you have a connection or two like myself, availability can be a problem as there are not so many maiko around!   Thanks to my connections, we were able to arrange 2 different portrait sessions with 2 different maiko.  Now that we had the time scheduled, the difficult part was finding a beautiful place, where we wouldn’t be overrun by tourist rushing to take photos!  So all the popular places were out of the questions, but we were able to find some more isolated areas that allowed us to make beautiful portraits in Kyoto.  Here are just a few of my favorite portraits of the two maiko in Kyoto during cherry blossom season:

 

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