Matsushima Part 2 - Everything Else

Matsushima is one of Japan's 3 top scenic places to visit and it is easy to understand why. Even though it was a little hazy on the day we visited, each of the islands in the bay are quite beautiful and it can be a lovely place to walk around.

That said, the busy main street is best avoided, because Matsushima is best enjoyed as far from the cars, shops and souvenir stores as possible.

We started with our tour around the islands (thus the seagull experience), but we also saw a variety of temples and even walked across a 252 metre long foot-bridge for a lovely stroll through one of the larger islands.

Oh, and the hotel we stayed at "Hotel Taikanso" was one of the very best yet. The view from our window was spectacular, the room was great and the meal was as delicious as I've become accustomed to... Going to be hard to go back to normal food soon!

The photoset is here.

We are in Nikko now for 2 days before heading back to Tokyo. Stay tuned for news on our latest exploits!

Matsushima Part 1 - The Birds!

I'll tell you all about how groovy Matsushima is in another post. However what I really had to mention were the amazing seagulls we saw on our cruise around the islands.

The gulls were obviously used to having people feed them - further encouraged by the people operating the boat as they sell seagull friendly snacks specifically for this. Watching the birds swoop down and snatch the food from people's fingers was amazing. So amazing I decided to give it a try myself... And since I was feeding them, may as well catch it on the camera.

So, the set-up:

1. Prawn flavoured snacks
2. Hungry seagulls
3. Camera able to take 6 photos per second
4. Person not afraid to loose one or more fingers.

The result - here in this photoset.

Check out the action though:


In all the shots the seagull would be just in frame, food snatched and back out again within 3 shots. So half a second to get in and get back out... Impressive!