Photo Trip Report: Japan in a Van

[joelle]

Thanks for sharing your beautiful photos

[Lost]

Dead jealous, Buksi! Cracking photos as usual.

[Lost]

One question, Buksi. How do you get your photos, which must be a fair few mb file sizes, compressed to the forum limit? I've struggled with anything over 2mb.

[buksida]

The images are downloaded off the camera onto my laptop and then edited in Adobe Lightroom where I can make some exposure tweaks, apply filters if needed, and export them in the right size for the forum setting the file size to under 500kb. There are hundreds of programs and pieces of software to resize photos, its pretty easy.

[PeteC]

http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

Have used it for years for forum work. Reduce to 50% and Best, Lost, and everything will post to the forum.

[buksida]

It was time to hit the road and we had a three-hour drive north to Nagano and our first night at a Japanese road station. Campsites here are expensive as they charge for the vehicle and per person, and for electricity, all on top and all you really get is a parking space and toilet and shower facilities.

Therefore, I researched road stations, or ‘Michi-no-eki’ as they’re known locally, where you can park overnight for free and use the 24-hour toilets which are fully loaded with the usual functions. The Japanese are travelling people and campervans are very popular here so we were never alone overnighting at these road stations. They also have farm shops during the day and vending machines at night so food and drink are never far away. The only downside to staying at road stations was the lack of shower facilities but with temperatures seldom over 12 degrees during the day and down to 4-6 at night, we didn’t miss them.

Our first road station experience went well, and it was just 20 minutes away from the departure point for tomorrow’s adventure.

Day 4
Up early for the twisty mountain drive to Sawando where we would leave the van and take a bus into the national park and up to the scenic Kamikochi area in the Japan Alps region.

This was very popular with the locals as it is an area of natural beauty and the Japanese love their cameras and taking photos. The big attraction this time of year is the autumn foliage with every shade of green, yellow, orange, ochre, red, and brown exploding from the hillsides in a kaleidoscope of colour.

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To follow: More from Kamikochi

[STEVE G]

Impressive, I never knew that Japan had so many mountains.

[buksida]

Neither did I, more than two-thirds of the country is mountainous.

[STEVE G]

I've just looked this up and Japan has 20 mountains over 3,000m which is quite a lot!

[Dannie Boy]

I've just looked this up and Japan has 20 mountains over 3,000m which is quite a lot!

It’s 20 more than the UK has!!


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[pharvey]

I've just looked this up and Japan has 20 mountains over 3,000m which is quite a lot!

It’s 20 more than the UK has!!

Then again, we don't have quite the same Tectonics.... Thankfully!

Unfortunately on my "working visits" to Japan, I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked as I was predominately in urban areas (though I did manage the odd weekend). This report and photo's however truly makes me want to go back - you could end up costing me a fortune buks!!

[Suua]

One of the most beautiful places I went to was Kyoto.
The imperial palaces with beautiful buildings in the middle of lakes was breathtaking.
I love Japan.....just very expensive.

[buksida]

The views along the hiking trails in the national park were simply breathtaking. However, it was very busy with hikers, ramblers, photographers, nature-buffs, tourists, and the Instagram generation.

Many of the younger Japanese girls looked like they’d just stepped out of a nightclub with short skirts, high boots, and designer handbags being the fashion (not that there’s anything wrong with that). While we froze our asses off rucked up in fleeces and beanies, they preened and posed for selfies like axiomatic birds of paradise. Why people travel all the way to places of outstanding natural beauty to take pictures of themselves is beyond me, must be a generational thing.

Japan is an aged country but the elderly have a lot of energy compared to the average westerner of similar age. The Japanese are very active people and often work into their seventies, therefore, there were a lot of older hikers on the trails of Kamikochi.

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To follow: More Kamikochi

[KhunLA]

I've just looked this up and Japan has 20 mountains over 3,000m which is quite a lot!

It’s 20 more than the UK has!!

Puts the UK on par with TH, also not having any >3k

Curious, and JP on par with USA, mi² for mi²
477 vs 20 = ~24X more
USA vs JP = 26X larger

Buksida ... very nice snaps BTW

[Dannie Boy]

Are you still using your old camera for these photos - if so looking forward to seeing what the new one does better?


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