What a treat it was to go back to Tokyo in April after having just been there in January. Alex went for work, so it was a bit of a last-minute trip that we hadn’t originally planned on. I invited myself along, and while he worked long hours every day, I had lots of time…
We were lucky enough to visit Tokyo not once but twice this year, and we were doubly lucky to catch the tail end of cherry blossom season on the second trip. Since it was a work trip for Alex and we weren’t able to book things until the last minute, we got very lucky (again)…
Tokyo! After a whirlwind eight days visiting four other places in Japan, we finally reached its biggest city, Tokyo. We stayed for five nights in Ginza, a nice, relatively quiet commercial district filled with luxury brands and nice hotels and restaurants. Alex had made a reservation ahead of time, so after checking in to the…
From our lovely stay in Kyoto, we continued eastward, where we made the train-equivalent of an extended layover in Nagoya en route to Tokyo. My friend Julianne happens to be living in Nagoya for two years, so we took the opportunity to do a one-night stay to say hello and even do some laundry! Our…
Halfway through our Japan trip, we had such a lovely time in Kyoto. It’s quite the darling of Japanese cities, as we enjoyed plenty of its historical attractions, food, shopping, and even some nature. Anchoring it all was our stay at the Ace Hotel Kyoto. Something about this West Coast American (from Portland) property in…
From the quiet, meditative spaces of the art islands, we traveled straight into the center of the chaos when we took a shinkansen into Osaka. The trains were all nearly full, as it seems like everyone else was also going back to the big city after their New Year’s breaks. We spent only two nights…
I first heard of Japan’s art islands when my friends visited a couple years ago and declared it their favorite place in the entire world. The islands of Naoshima and Teshima are set in the Inland Sea, west of Osaka. They require at minimum a train and a ferry– half a day’s travel– to reach,…
And now, part three of three, completing my posts on Japan! If you’ve missed out on the previous posts, just scroll to the bottom for the recap. For the last five nights of the trip we finally stayed in the same place instead of city-hopping, and we got to see a bit more of Tokyo…
We were to begin the day in Kyoto and end it in Tokyo. What happened in between was still up for debate. My original plan was to sneak in a side trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima, but the substantial detour southward was enough to make us think twice. Instead, we headed to the little town…
A special kind of magic happened as I sat down and first started going through these photos. Indeed, it was as if I had acquired a tiny new superpower. Just by looking at the pictures, I could taste each of the foods that I had photographed. I mean, it’s one thing to generally remember things…
Akane is one of the most amazing brides I’ve ever worked with, because she has become one of my greatest advocates and has gone above and beyond to include me in her wedding day. Even before she had a venue, she knew that I would be the photographer. There was just one little catch– she…
It was such an incredible honor to fly to Japan in order to photograph Akane and Gimpei’s wedding. While the wedding itself was on Saturday in Osaka, we took some time on Friday to take a side trip to Kyoto and photograph some engagement-style portraits the day before the wedding. To be in such a…