2017 Private Summer Tour of Japan | Tokyo

Aug 10 | Evan | No Comments |

The first full day of my private tour of Japan was spent as a day trip in Nikko, visiting a master Japanese sword smith and some of the sights that make Nikko magnificent. After our time in Tochigi Prefecture, we had a few days to explore, photograph, experience and eat our way through Tokyo. Though even if we had many days, there is never enough time to see, and especially eat and photograph everything in Tokyo!

Also, back to when I mentioned I love creating private tours of Japan for the amount of personalization I can put into it, for this tour it meant including some stops for anime and Studio Ghibli which happens on the majority of my trips to Japan, but also introduced me to another side of Japan that I knew of but didn’t really know much about, brand name fashion in Japan like BAPE and Supreme, not based in Japan but has more stores in Japan than the rest of the world combined. This along with how Japanese owners are famous for keeping items in good condition, mean that Japan and Tokyo is a mecca for pristine second hand goods like Supreme. So along with photography and eating, there was a lot of shopping while traveling around Japan.

We also made time for a cooking lesson with a Japanese chef in her home in Tokyo, which is always one of most popular experiences with my visitors to Japan. Besides the experience and connecting with a local family, the food is always amazing.

Between shopping and eating, we of course managed to do some sightseeing, photography and exploring. Including one night after dinner we went to Hie Shrine where there was a nice little Summer Festival going on with taiko drums and dancing. Another perfect opportunity to play with the stabilization for Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II. The three photos below are all hand held with shutter speeds of 1/10, 0.4 and 0.8.