It's a long way

Indeed it is and I don't mean the pilgrimage on Shikoku - I hope my next approach will be better - I am actually talking about the Kickstarter campaign for my illustrated book.

We've already achieved ~20% but there is still a lot left.

Uwajima

Beside the project page of 日本の城 - Japanese Castles I will show you a few pages of the book giving you a better idea of the book and its 292 pages with 400+ pictures of 19 castles.

There won't be any text, except for the preface giving you the opportunity to completely focus on the pictures. Every chapter is having one page with a family crest, this resemples the daimyo (samurai lord) clan that either build or is connected the most to the history or the relevance of that specific castle, e.g. Fushimi/Momoyama castle in Kyoto got the emblem of the Toyotomi clan, who's leader Hideyoshi built the castle, in Uwajima it's a mixture between the Ashina and Date clan and a 3rd example is about Kiyosu castle which was the residence of Oda Nobunaga.

I would appreciate every support - Thank you!

Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima

Kiyosu Castle in Nagoya

Osaka

Fushimi

Okayama

Hiroshima

Only 4 castles left

Still Working on my Picturebook for my upcoming Kickstarter campaign, a few more castles are finished now, currrently there are ~40/290 pages left: Fukushima, Nagoya, Matsumoto and Kishiwada

To finish up that entry I hereby present Fushimi castle with a mixed abstract Background and the family crest of Toyotomi mixed with Matsudaira.

Join my project on Kickstarter - coming soon - April 2021 - https://lnkd.in/dxFyw86

Kickstarter - Postcards of Japan - from Hokkaido to Okinawa

Hello everyone,

after many months of inactivity and Corona I wanted to post something again.

I had started a Kickstarter campaign, because I normally travel to Japan every year and in 2020 I can't so I wanted to "give something back", creating that project to print postcards that I would like to offer for international shipping, giving the opportunity for some sort of inspirition for future travels or just for decoration.

Imagining someone would be inspired to travel to those places and using one of my cards to send it back home after exploring those spots themself is a nice idea.

The last hours have started and only a few are left to back my project.

If you like the idea of a poctcard pictures from Hokkaido to Okinawa, just follow this link: http://kck.st/36fwe3E, I am happy about every support.

Thank you and enjoy

Here's a small preview of some of those cards:

Fushimi Castle - White drone down

On my vacation to Japan this Fall I went to Fushimi Castle in Kyoto to take a few pictures and videos with my drone.

The Fushimi area is mostly known for the Fushimi Inari shrine (Good old Kyoto) with thousands of red Torii, but there is more and you can easily get to the castle grounds, it's just a little bit of walking from the Fushimi Nankai station.

In case of using a drone I prepared a lot better this time than in Fall 2016 (Drones in Japan). Fushimi Castle is no RED ZONE so it's allowed and completely fine to fly there, also because there is no sort of administration - the gras had grown high compared to Hanami Season, everything looked a little wild and the castle can't be entered or has a museum inside.

I had already visited the castle grounds in March during the Hanami season, when many people gathered beneath the cherry trees drinking beer while doing a picnic.

 

 

In Fall the people around were a few elderly people painting pictures of the area. They where a little suprised when I started my DJI Phantom 2 drone with a gimbal for my GOPRO 4, but didn't get shocked like last year in Ueno Koen. I have been "up in the air" for around 9 minutes flying around the castle tower and up to 75> m high also seeing a baseball field nearby and the whole city of Kyoto. I was just getting my drone down before the gimbal got loose 15 m above the ground making it falling down and completely destroying the gimbal, but luckily not my Gopro or any data.

Now enjoy the pictures, especially those from above before the "WHITE DRONE DOWN" happened.

Picture of the Day #19 - Ho-Oh in Kyoto

The Pokémon Center in Kyoto has been opening a few months ago. The second Generation of Pokémon symbolizes the area of the Kansei region and the place where you can catch Ho-Oh, the packshot monster of the Golden Edition which is based on the mythical Chinese phoenix like creature, would be Kyoto in the real world, that's why the flagship monster of the Kyoto Pokémon Center is Ho-Oh.

Other daily pictures can be found in the Picture of the Day section and on INSTAGRAM, where you can also find a few more Pokémon Pictures, e.g.Charizard

Now enjoy Ho-Oh and Pikachu on its back

Good old Kyoto - Japan-Sunday

I was in Kyoto many times, the first time in the summer of 2015, it was a rainy day, I only went to Fushimi Inari Taisha, the Nintendo Headquarter and a book off, where I bought Pokémon red.
At Fushimi Inari they had blocked the way up to the top because of a typhoon.

But the following pictures are about my trip to Kyoto in Fall with my buddies

FUN FACT regarding Fushimi Inari Taisha and Nintendo: The "white fox" shrine is some sort of the Origin of Star Fox, the Fushimi Inari and its thousands of Tori inspired Shigeru Miyamoto to create the "torii" in Star Fox

Now enjoy pictures of our trip:

At the Kyoto JR station a few students with their teachers practiced their english skills, it was funny, the boy on the right was the best , he was quite enthusiastic and asked a few questions and reacted to our answers while the others only read their questions on the papers.

We started with the Kiyomizudera Temple in the East of Kyoto, we had planned a lot for that day, but our day began very late so we only were able to visit the Kiyomizudera temple and the Fushimi Inari Taisha.

 

And here's the entrance / Main gate of the Fushimi InariTaisha

This time I was at the top and prayed, but I didn't visit the bamboo forest this time, so there's something that you can look forward to in my next Kyoto entry.

Aaaaand that's it again.