Here’s one way to cool down a little during the Tokyo summer . . .

Back in 2008 I took part in a press tour to the Shiretoko peninsula way up on the northeast tip of Hokkaido. It was a fantastic trip, including a visit out to the ice-flows on an ice-breaker.

Sadly, global warming is threatening Shiretoko’s tourist industry as each year the ice flow shrinks.

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Not only is Tsukiji fish market one of best places in Tokyo to visit, its one of the most photogenic too.

A few years ago I did a small project photographing people who work in the market. I have around 100 impromptu portraits.

Usually, I just approached people explained what I was doing, asked if I could take their photo, took it as quickly as I could, then said thanks and left.

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This is the last of the sets of photos I took up in tsumnami-devastated Ishinomaki over Golden Week.

The morning of 5 May I drove from Sendai to Ishinomaki with rakugo artist Dianne Orrett and a couple of her Chindon’ya friends. We spent the day together as they performed at the Ishinomaki Mangattan and a local shrine festival.

This is just one of many trips Diane has made up to the earthquake zone.

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Some photos from a little while ago that I’ve finally got round to posting (that happens a lot!)

This is the owner of Marutou wasabi farm. If you are ever near the tip of the Izu peninsula, pay him a visit. He lives in one of the most beautiful Japanese villages I’ve ever seen.

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This is another story from Golden week. I travelled up to the disaster zone with the Tokyo Sinfonia who played several concerts in the refugee centers.

This was another privileged experience. Two months after the quake, the authorities were reluctant to let anyone into the centers – least of all photographers.

But it was moving to hear the performances – and even more moving to see the reaction of the audiences.

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From the June issue of the magazine of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan

Surf’s up.

Recently had  chance to visit a surfing “Mecca” in Chiba with my brother-in-law.

Beats Sunday morning pushing a trolley around Itoyokado. Time to invest in one of these?

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These photos are from a trip to the island of Sado in 2009, when I spent a couple of days driving around looking for places and people to feature in the travel story I was writing.

I found this shrine a short drive up into the hills. It is named “Nashinoki Jizo” after the tens of thousands of jizo statues in its grounds. Jizo is the Japanese name for the Buddhist Kstigarbha – statues of the deity are very common in Japan. There are even small jizo shrines on many residential streets in Tokyo.

Jizo is the guardian of children, particularly sick children, and in recent decades has been worshiped as the protector of stillborn, miscarried or aborted babies.

The Legend of the Humming of the Sai-no-Kawara, by Lafcadio Hearn (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

But lo! the teacher Jizô appears,

All gently he comes, and says to the weeping infants:

“Be not afraid, dears! be never fearful!

Poor little souls, your lives were brief indeed!

Too soon you were forced to make the weary journey to the Meido,

The long journey to the region of the dead!

Trust to me! I am your father and mother in the Meido,

Father of all children in the region of the dead.”

And he folds the skirt of his shining robe about them;

So graciously takes he pity on the infants.

To those who cannot walk he stretches forth his strong shakujô,

And he pets the little ones, caresses them, takes them to his loving bosom.

So graciously he takes pity on the infants.

Namo Jizo Bosatsu!

Men and women come from far away to dedicate jizo at this shrine. The statues they leave behind are made from stones taken from the sea. Over the decades many of them have been worn completely smooth again or have sunk down into the earth.

Noto town in Kanazawa prefecture has lost two thirds of its residents since the 1970s, its sons and daughters leaving for jobs in the city. Remaining behind are silence, empty streets, pork barrel civic projects, pachinko parlours, the loyal, and the old.

This is a story repeated in rural areas all over Japan. And yet, somehow, the aging society is described as a coming crisis.

Toyohashi city is where I landed in Japan and lived for a few years before coming to Tokyo.

It’s not far from Nagoya, not far from the mountains, not far from the sea, not doing very well in the recession. It was a great place to live when I was there – probably still is.

I went back for a couple of days recently to visit a few friends and spent and afternoon wandering round the city center with my camera.

Is this the most photographed temple in Japan?

I was down in Kyoto last week meeting a Danish tea master (more on that one day) and staying at a Zen Buddhist temple for a night (no photos!).

In between the two I had a morning to spare so what to do? My first thought was to find a nice quiet temple among the thousands, but in the end I decided to head for Kinkakuji, temple of the golden pavilion, and the ultimate Kyoto tourist trap. The challenge I set myself was to avoid the usual cliches. (In fact, there’s only one place to take a ‘postcard’ shot of Kinkakuji. No doubt it was designed that way, albeit not for photography)

This was a scorching spring day so the temple was even busier than usual. I took my shots and hot-footed it out of there.