Author: Jim
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Festival Float
Aomori, Aomori Prefecture, Japan. November 2025.
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Stormclouds over Aomori
As I mentioned in the previous post, Aomori Prefecture is the northernmost prefecture on Japan’s main island of Honshu. The city of Aomori itself averages 26 feet of snow annually, more than any city in the world. I visited in November, and December–February turned out to be one of the snowiest in decades. It would
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Inohana Castle
Chiba City, Chiba, Japan. October 2025.
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Torii! Torii! Torii!
Takayama Inari Shrine, and its senbon torii (thousand torii), are decidedly not easy to get to without a car: three buses, a long walk, and about two-and-a-half hours later we were exploring the grounds. The “thousand” torii is symbolic, rounded up from the just over 200 torii that are actually there. Regardless, they are striking
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Autumn in Morioka
Morioka is a little over 300 miles north of Tokyo. My daughter and I only ended up staying there because we had a one-night gap to fill between our hotel in Tokyo and our hotel in Aomori even further north. So, it was essentially a layover in our shinkansen (bullet train) journey and we spent
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Chambered
Morioka, Iwate, Japan. November 2025.
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Checkered
Taito City, Tokyo, Japan. October 2025.
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Urban Abstracts
Before the blog moves on from Tokyo, I wanted to share some images that are a of a more abstract flavor. It’s fun to exploit buildings with lots of glass, like in the image above, where the left half of the image is filled with reflections of the right half. At this point, four months
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Dilapidation, Tokyo-Style
Tokyo is truly massive. It would take ten more visits and some real dedication before I became at all suspicious of having walked 0.01% of its streets, so there is nothing definitive or comprehensive about any impressions of the city I might have. That disclaimer aside, like any city there are nice areas and not-so-nice
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Pattern of Abuse
Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. October 2025.