This is Kamakura

Part two of the Great Tokyo Tour To Heather's Former Haunts!

Kamakura and Kita Kamakura make up a collection of shrines and temples a short train ride out of Tokyo. When she lived in Tokyo three years ago, Heather used to come out to Kamakura all the time. She thought I'd like the place, and with the combination of old-school Japanese architecture and TREES, she was absolutely right.

This is Yokohama

Heather and I headed to Tokyo for Golden Week 2011 (from April 29th to May 5th), but I'm only getting around to posting the first batch of photos from the trip now. As I've, apparently, swung my fickle/obsessive interest set out of writing and into photography, let's call this a Photo Essay of the Yokohama leg of our trip...

This is Otaru

The city of Otaru is only an hour bus ride away from my town of Furubira, and in February they host a week-long snow lantern festival. Here are some no-bullshit photos of it.

This is Niseko

I tend to take a lot of pictures and sandwich them into blog posts. I thought the pictures might benefit from a little less distraction and a little more in the way of concrete context.

So, here are some views of and from Hirafu in Niseko. It's the main ski resort on Mount Niseko An'nupuri, and it's one of the best places from which to stare at neighbouring Mount Yotei.

This is Where I Live

Taken from my front door before heading out to work at about 7:54am

The currently vacant teacher house behind mine, belonging to the high school. Notice the kind of damage snow build-up can do along the side of the roof. Roundabout the same time as the previous.

An Odajima construction worker, working to clear the huge buildup of snow from my elementary school's roof on Friday. These guys were very securely tied off to shovels embedded in the snow further along the roof. I'm not sure how much good that would have done should one of them have gotten lost in the world of white ground and grey sky on that melty Friday.

All in a night's work. These are taken just over an hour apart on Tuesday night, out my back sliding door. I had been away all weekend, it had kept snowing, and I had to clear the build-up of snow that had avalanched down from my roof. What you see in the lower picture is the meter of solid snow that has accumulated since I had a guy in to remove all the snow from behind my house on January 19th, which I can't be bothered to dig out as the wood across the glass of the sliding door does a good enough job of holding it back. With the amount of snow that has been coming down this winter, I've had to dig out the back of my house for at least three hours every week: not because I actually use the back of my house but to make sure that the snow doesn't build up to the point where it blocks my heater exhaust, threatens to break my windows, and keeps aditional snow from sliding down off of the roof.