The photos on this site were all taken on a recent holiday to Southern Japan using a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera. I did take a ton of slides on my more conventional F70 too, especially in my last week when I ran out of digital memory cards (d'oh!), but I haven't been able to digitise them yet. Please feel free to download these photos, but don't remove the copyright and photo details - also posting these photos to other websites is a big no no, without written permission. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu (big polite thanks, heh heh).
Japan is a great place to take a holiday and I enjoyed every second of mine. It is an expensive place, although money can be saved if you are like me and have a good friend who lives there... the only problem is that if they are anything like my friend, then they'll take you out and much drunkedness will take place every night. A whole lot of fun, but the culture shock of £3-6 a half litre takes a while to sink in!
I didn't get much chance to railfan the country, 'cause I was to busy having fun, heh heh, however plans are now underway for a possible second visit in August 2002. Much to my regret I didn't get to Hokkaido or Shikoku, or to see Mount Fuji, so these are all in the pipeline for the next time!!! Did get plenty of chances to sample the famous Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen though, which were nice, if a little sterile, which is probably a complaint that can be levelled at much of what the Japanese produce. Still cool though. Best trains of the holiday were the Kyushu Railway Company 'Kamome' (one of the Sonic family) EMU's on the Hakata-Nagasaki route. Leather interiors, I kid you not!
I hope you enjoy these pictures... if you do, then drop me a line at garethbayer@btinternet.com
Ja, mata! (see ya later),
Gareth
p.s. Apologies if some of the Japanese on this site is a little 'baka', but I'm trying my best. Also it is easily possible that some of the train information is completely wrong, it can be very difficult trying to read Japanese books, although my kana recognition is improving! If you can correct any errors on this site, please drop me a line. (BTW, thanks to the guys on jtrains@yahoogroups.com for the help so far).