Autumn Colors

Japanese people can be quite peculiar. They are are enamored with all things naturally beautiful, to a degree that is much more extreme than anything in America. Every one of my students tells me how much they love the fall colors, and where great places are to go see the changing leaves. The will drive two or three hours just to walk in a park or take a few photos. They even have a word for "Autumn viewing." My Japanese teacher told me that next week, her photography club will go to a river that is "famous for" (that's a whole nother post) autumn viewing. In the States, people will definitely go to places that are known to be quite beautiful: Radner Lake, in Nashville for instance. But that's like everyone just generally knows that it's really nice, and a very small percentage actually go there. This is like everyone in the country talks about it, goes somewhere and wants to hear about places they missed. People even predict when the peak of the season will be, for best colors and contrasts, and apparently this season's been written up by a newspaper or website or something as being sub-par. To me it all seems somewhat strange, but to their credit, they do have a lot to be proud of.


That being said, I thought it was about time I broke out the old camera, and went on some "autumn viewing" excursions of my own. Anyway, here's a few pictures I took in and around Koriyama. It really is beautiful. Unfortunately for you, the best of my pictures I took with my SLR and not my digital. If I can upload some of my film-pictures to a CD or something, I'll see if I can post them.



After posting these pictures, I realized that there's not much autumn visible in them, aside from harvest-torn rice fields. Not to worry though; I've got plenty from Kyoto.