Movie: Katen no Shiro
Released in Japan on Sept. 12, 2009, this movie is about Okabe Mataemon, a Nagoya (Atsuta)-based master carpenter who in 1576 was ordered by Japan’s leading warlord Oda Nobunaga to…
Real Geisha Real Women, Kyoto geisha film by Peter MacIntosh
I just saw a screening of my friend Peter MacIntosh’s documentary geisha film called Real Geisha Real Women at The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo on June 22,…
Gunkanjima (Battleship island) open to the public
Gunkanjima, a small and intriguing abandoned island used for coal-mining in Nagasaki Prefecture, is now open to tourists from April 22, 2009. The large apartment buildings atop the island make…
Cell phone decoration
Spotted this camera phone while I was watching a festival in Nagahama, Shiga Prefecture. It’s not a clamshell type phone. The top slides upward to reveal numeric keys underneath. Such…
Japanzine’s Best of Japan On the Web 2009
Nagoya-based magazine Japanzine selected PhotoGuide Japan as one of the best Japan sites for 2009 under the Photo Gallery category. See the complete list here: http://www.seekjapan.jp/article/jz/1974/Best+of+Japan+On+the+Web+2009
Vintage sumo videos
I’ve been digitizing some old videotapes I shot years ago. Here are a few sumo gems.This is Akebono making hand prints at his stable in Tokyo in 1991. This was…
PhotoGuide Japan, Best of Japan On the Web 2009 by Japanzine
PhotoGuide Japan was selected by Japanzine magazine as one of the “Best of Japan On the Web 2009” sites under the Photo Gallery category. http://www.japanzine.jp/article/jz/1974/best-of-japan-on-the-web-2009
Obama for Obama
How awesome to see the first Hawaii-born US President being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2009. I couldn’t be in Washington, DC for the occasion, so I did the next…
Sapporo Snow Festival highlighted by Hawaiian TV show
New book called “The Companies We Keep 2” by Bob Sigall has been published with my photo of the Iolani Palace snow sculpture at the Sapporo Snow Festival is highlighted…
Supermodel Sayoko Yamaguchi dies
I was shocked and saddened to hear that Japan’s one and only super fashion model, Sayoko Yamaguchi, died of acute pneumonia on Aug. 14, 2007. She was 57. She was…