At What Price...?

I visited A-Bomb Dorm and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum today. Shocking images and mementos of the a-bomb victims reminded me of the Holocaust museum in D.C.. Seeing how the atomic bomb was developed and used to turn Hiroshima into one of the most tragetic places in the world, I thought it is always the harmless individuals who were victimized in a tragedy like this... Either the Holocaust or Hiroshima, it shouldn't be possible that insanities of murdering be tolerated or justified during wars...

In Hiroshima, the first a-bomb was dropped, but at what price? Two billion dollars that is spent on the Manhattan project? An end to the world war? Those 140,000 people who died from the bomb? Possibility of nuclear wars that can lead to the termination of our own kind and many other species?

Obviously the price of the lesson comes tremendous, but that's why it has to be learned so that the tragetic hisotry won't repeat itself.

Finally, the words of a photographer who took pictures right after the a-bomb was dropped have stood out in my memory - it took almost 30 minutes to encourage myself to take the first picture. Then, I became calm. So I got close to the subject. I tried to see the finder to realize my teers covering it and couldn't see well.

At Golden Pavilion

Temple covered with gold.... it was amazing....

Unfortunately, I found this crane and became obsessed to it. So, I really didn't see the golden temple much...

I think I just like taking photos of animals and birds in general.

Good Luck and Bad Luck

Today, we went to Imperial Palace and Nijo Castle in Kyoto. What a huge place the palace is... and what a bummer to figure out that the palace is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.... we walked on and on until I finally asked a gurad and knew if its open or not.

A piece of advice, people who might want to go see this place should be careful not to be too close to the wall/fense. Like we did, an alarm will be set off and scare you.

So, in the morning, we had little fan. But in the afternoon at the Nijo Castle, we happened to be able to see an hawk show which is held twice a year! What a good luck we had! As usual, I took bunch of pictures.

Also, today is the first day to perform in public for this girl and her hawk who are blinking in this photo.

A hawk was thrown in to the air by a performer like this.

2008 Traveling in Japan

These two images were photographed on 1/1/2008, when I did a new year's visit to a shrine in my town in Japan. I stuck around until 3 a.m. at the shrine, taking pictures and enjoyining some Sake that was served to the pepople visiting the shrine for free. For your information, you can start drinking legally if you are above 20. So, if you are 20 and want to drink legally, like me, you should come visit Japan.
People who served Sake to visiters take some rest after the cleaning up at 3 in the morning.
The man, who cleans and sterilize small dish-shaped drinking cup, casts his shadow on the tent.


The last three photos are from Kyoto. I have been traveling Japan for about a week or so. Today I have arrived at Kyoto which is one of the best place for tourism and some shopping.
In this temple(called Sanjusangendo temple), taking photos inside the main temple was prohibited. So, I stuck around around the entrance for while to shoot this photo.

It was interesting to see many people visiting Kiyomizu temple. There was this Buddha which gives you some sort of luck if you touch it. I did the same thing when I was a small kid, but not this time. There were way too many people lining up to do that.