Japan - The first pics

It's not my first posting from Japan (the three former postings about North Sea Jazz Festival were also posted from Japan), but it is my first posting about Japan since we've been here, or better posting with some first pics which were made during our stay here. It's just to give you a first impression, because there are many pics that I took and it's also a lot of work to sort them out and in the mean time I have to do some traveling and take pictures too.

I won't bother you right now with too much background information. The first five pics were taken at the Kawagoe festival where we went on a daytrip the first weekend of our stay in Japan. It's a well known festival in Japan which attracts many visitors.

The 6th pic was taken at a temple at sunset near where my mother in law lives.

The 7th pic was taken during a trip we made from November 22nd until 29th where we visited Aomori-prefecture and Sendai in Miyagi prefecture. This pic was taken at a trip to Shirakami, an Unesco World Heritage. The pictures 8 up to 15 were taken at a trip from Oirase river to Towada lake. This was absolutely gorgeous, despite some rain in the afternoon. It was a walk of about 11 kilometres, but it took us 8 hours (including rests and short breaks) to finish it. Not because the walk was so heavy, but because there were so many photogenic points. I shot two 4 GB memorycards during that day.

Besides resizing the pics haven't been photoshopped. It's just to give you a bit of a first impression. There will be plenty more pics to follow. I only don't know exactly when. We are almost halfway our stay and we have a pretty busy schedule. Hopefully the pictures will make you hungry for more later. For now enjoy the pics.

(click on the pics to enlarge)