Wooden Bridge

Photographed in Nikko city. No green color is in this photo!


This is a Shadow Shot Sunday #146, Scenic Sunday 137 and Sunday Bridges.

                 

Enmeiin Temple

Enmeiin (延命院) is a Buddhist temple belonging to the Chizan-ha branch of the Shingon school (真言宗智山派) of Buddhism. The temple was founded in 1063 in Utsunomiya city downtown by Souen Fujiwara (藤原宗円). The 18 meter tall Aesculus tree shown in the middle of the photo is believed to be 350 years old. This tree is special in Tochigi Prefecture because the genus of Aesculus is the symbol tree of the prefecture.

In general, Buddhist temple grounds include a cemetery and take care of memorial services for the deceased...

This is also an entry for Show Me Japan Vol 1, Issue 14. If you want to see nice photos taken in Japan, don't forget to visit!

And also for Scenic Sunday 135 and Best Posts of the Week.

        

Safe Bridge

Three days ago, I posted a photo of a damaged bridge found in Lake Chuzenji (photos below).

            

Damaged Bridge

And one more

This bridge is obviously safe and used by several boat owners.

And also for Black and White Weekend, Shadow Shot Sunday #143, Scenic Sunday 134 and Weekend Reflections #73.

                 

Have a nice weekend.

Bronze Statue Of Sacred Horse

Important note: New Friend Exchange

This entry is a part of activity that I joined through Sunflowerkat321's blog, who decided to play after visiting The Kitchen Bitch Ponder's blog.

I would modify the rule a little and here we go:
I promise to send something related to Japan to the 5 people who leave a comment on this post and who, in turn, promise to send something back to me. The rules are that you need to make the items personally and send within 2011. I will contact you by private message for your snail mail address.

If you only want to comment on this entry but don't want to join this activity, that's fair enough. Just leave a comment as you normally do. 

If you find it interesting, want to join the activity and to swap things between you and me, please express your intention in your comment.

Part two of "Sacred horse" and "Ema (絵馬)" in Shinto religion. Ema is a substitute of the real sacred horse that used to be donated to the shrine in the past. This bronze statue of the sacred horse shown in this photo was donated by an individual who must have been rich and serious about religion. If you want to be a shinto geek, please visit  Lina's blog in which I have described Ema in more detail.

If you are more into live horse action, here you go.

Click photo to know more about the performance

This is an entry for Show Me Japan Vol 1, Issue 12. If you want to see nice photos taken in Japan, don't forget to visit. 

And also for Black and White Weekend, Shadow Shot Sunday #142, Scenic Sunday 133.

             

Have a wonderful weekend.

Cafeteria At Night

No tricks were applied to this bizarre image; no multiple exposures, no art filters; no fancy artworks, no nothing, except I converted it into black and white, adjusted tone curves (to get closer to what I saw), and shrinked the image size to upload.

This is a cafeteria at Nasunogahara Harmony Hall (那須野が原ハーモニーホール) in Otawara City, Tochigi Prefecture. I was outside of the building and photographed the cafeteria through a thick glass wall.

If you want to see more photos taken at this place, please click the images below:

         

This is a Black and White Weekend, Weekend Reflections, and Shadow Shot Sunday and Scenic Sunday entry.

                

Have a wonderful weekend.

Utsunomiya Castle At Night

Turret of Utsunomiya Castle photographed at Night. Nobody was there. No Moon, no clouds, no wind. Just nothing but the reflection.

          Click photo to enlarge color version of this castle if you are into color!


This is a Black and White Weekend, Weekend Reflections, Shadow Shot Sunday, Scenic Sunday and ABC Photo Challenge entry. N is for "N"o, "N"othing, "N"obody and "N"ight.

       

Have a wonderful weekend.

Jigendo Hall Revisited

This is one of my favorite buildings in Nikko's historical district. I can spend many pleasant hours there simply by sitting down and looking around.
The color photo of this building can be seen here.

This is a Black and White Weekend and Scenic Sunday entry.

       

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sea Urchin In The Lake?

Today I discovered white sea urchins sparkling in the lake!!!

No. It's a reflection of the sun on the surface of stones in Chuzenji Lake.

This is a Black and White Weekend, Scenic Sunday, and Weekend Reflection entry.

     

Have a nice weekend.

Japanese Garden

Just like yesterday, this is another infrared photography taken by my customized digital camera - Olympus C2020Z. Since chlorophyl has autofluorescence around 700 nm when exposed by sunlight, green leaves look so bright.

This is a Weekend Reflections, Scenic Sunday, and black and white weekend entry.

   

Have a wonderful weekend.