Japan: Day two

"In front of vibrant bright green door, a Japanese monk begs for yen on the sidewalk near Ueno Station in Japan on Wednesday, Jan.2, 2008."

I had a blast Wednesday.

If I never got out of bed again during my trip or the rest of my days are horrible, I will know I had a great time Wednesday.

I woke up around 6:15 a.m. and again grabbed a quick breakfast from the hotel's AM/PM shop.

Around 9 a.m. I met with my second guide, Mr. Koichi Muramatsu or also known as Vivo. He is an engineer with Toshiba and an amateur photographer. He also brought along his 20-year-old friend and co-worker, Toshihide. Both of their English was better than the others yesterday, but it was still a challenge understanding them. I learned a lot from them throughout the day and they seemed to really appreciate it when I spoke in Japanese.

To my surprise, we started the day by hopping into Vivo's Subaru Legacy. This was a treat as I love Japanese cars, own a Subaru and got to see the town in a different way. After parking the car, we went back Asakusa and the Sensoji Buddhist temple. I felt rushed last visit.

We hit up a small restaurant of traditional Japanese food and then checked out some side streets. We then got on the subway and visited some other shrines in Ueno. I am not sure of all the shrine names, but they were beautiful.

We later met Vivo's friend, Mr.Yamagata, another photographer. I would later be in for a awesome surprise.

Around 2 p.m. we drove roughly 40 minutes south to Yokohama. The city was very cool and before seeing some tourist spots, we had a delicious sushi lunch/dinner.

One thing I noticed is that Japanese people can eat some food. No matter what is placed in front of them, they clean their plate, bowl and whatever else. Between yesterday and today, I've never seen so many people finish a meal completely. I felt bad leaving soup or rice behind, but I was forcing myself to eat too much.

As the sun dipped behind Mt.Fuji, we again met another tomodachi (friend) of Vivo. From there, we went to a port for a snack and drinks.

Then, we went back to Mr. Yamagata's home for an awesome view at some rare photography and cameras.

Mr. Yamagata owns four golden cameras. Three are Leicas and one Nikon (which I am holding since I am a Nikon guy). Very rare and only a few exist in the world according to him. He also had a bunch of custom built stereo (RBT) 35mm film cameras, one which he built himself. The three dimensional images these cameras produce, in combination with the images he made, blew me away. I wish I could share the results. I was surprised he invited me into his home, too.

I am being very vague, and did a lot more than what I've talked about. But if you look at the image of me with Mr.Yamagate you can see the jet lag bags under my eyes. Ha.

Anyways, I am having a blast and making some great images. I'll be sure to give some more insight and deeper details when I get time. It is late here and I am not sure what I have going on tomorrow, but I need some rest. I also need to go through these 700 images I shot just today.