Sneak Peek of our Awesome Japan trip (October 2012)

As some of you already know, this October we went to Japan - a trip I had been dreaming about for over a decade, and which my lovely husband not only agreed to but actually set in motion. I had been putting it off for ages, at first because of how expensive I assumed it would be, and later because secretly I was afraid that there was no way Japan could live up to the expectations I had steadily been building up. I will admit - I had the entire country and culture on a pedestal. In my mind, it was a fantasy land where the distant (and very romantic) past happily coexisted with a sort of science fiction future, where everything was not only steeped in meaning but also aesthetically stunning. Long before I ever went to Spain, France, Ireland or Mexico it was the only trip I ever wanted to take - and yet it was the trip I continued to not take. 

So last January when Norman and I were discussing possible places to visit,  I mentioned always having wanted to go to Japan. In that way that people who are not you have of making very obvious and simple observations about things that you have made very complicated in your own head, he said "so let's go". And that was it.

We ended up going for just over 3 weeks in October. We took one DSLR, one point-and-shoot, and one Super 8 camera. There are now over 2300 images, 80 short videos, and four rolls of Super 8 film, along with a journal that is so far three books long. Needless to say - it's going to take a while to edit through all this and process and absorb the whole experience, but so many people have asked to see pictures from our trip that I thought I would share a few snippets :) I will also share the two major things I learned as we were in Japan - 1. it doesn't have to be nearly as expensive as I thought it would be, and 2. it is even more awesome than I could have imagined :)

Here are a handful of my favourite images.. some are from the farm we stayed on in Gifu, and others are from Kyoto and Hiroshima (I promise - stories to follow at a later date!) - enjoy!

This last image is a piece I put together by collaging different elements of images from Tokyo, Kyoto, Miyajima, and the airport in Taipei (seriously!) - it's my plan to do a collection of collaged pieces as I've done with my France images (if you missed those at the Queen West Art Crawl this fall, stay tuned for information about upcoming shows..)

Have a great weekend!

xo 

Jessica