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Back in February I went to an island in Japan called Yakushima. I've been wanting to go there for about 5 or 6 years and finally made it this winter. Although it's been famous in Japan for a long tome, in recent years it's known for being the inspiration behind Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke because of it's moss covered, untouched forests. Much of the island is now a World Heritage site. It's located down south in Kagoshima prefecture which makes it a pretty warm and rainy place. However due to the unusually high, granite mountains there is often snow in the winter, giving it subtropical AND subarctic climates. One of the main draws to Yakushima is the abundance of giant, ancient cedar(sugi or yakusugi) trees. There are also lots of mountains and waterfalls everywhere. You can see monkeys and plenty of deer too.

You probably need a week to hit all the main spots but I only had a few days, so this is only a small part of the island. In fact, some of the most famous places I couldn't see because of time and bad weather. So there's a lot more than what you see here. I plan on going back this summer for a longer stay. February is very off-season, which is nice because for two of the three days I had I saw no one on the mountains. On some of the trails the police have you fill out a travel form telling them where you're hiking, just in case. That's so they know where to look for the bod.....find you if you're in trouble. Anyway, the problem with going in winter though is that everything is only about 50% green. Doesn't look nearly as nice as spring or summer. Actually a lot of the moss turns black....so, yeah. I guess that's zero percent green.










Click on the pics below for a larger size.

First off, here's the plane ride over from Kagoshima airport. Right in the middle of Kagoshima Bay is an active volcano called Sakurajima. There was another one very close by with a perfect cone shape, just like the kind I used to draw when I was a kid. The picture second from the right is Yakushima.





Ok, most of the next few compilations are Mononoke no mori(Mononoke Forest). Below you see a few really green pictures. Looks good, but this is not how it really looked, unfortunately. At the time, I was experimenting with the camera's white balance and I got those shots. That's more like how it is in summer. By comparison, the first shot is closer to how it really looked. Anyway, it's like that only for those 3 pics.

















Some other pics from the Yakusugiland trails:












On the last day I tried for the tallest mountain, Miyanouradake. It rained. It snowed. The trails were often covered with snow, until finally, very close to the top, the trail disappeared completely under several feet of snow and I had to turn back. So no epic pics from the top of the mountain. Maybe this summer. It doesn't look that bad from the picture but many times the snow pack was only a few inches thick even though it was several feet high. It was really easy to fall through.





Because it was often dark and I have a slow camera, I had to use a tripod for most of the shots. So when I came across a deer, all the pics were too blurry. Not only that, but my camera's battery usually died about 3/4 through each day and for some reason most of the waterfalls were at the end of all the trails. Missed those. Anyway, here are some blurry deer shots thanks to my cell phone's POS camera. How ironic.





Speaking of (rein)deer...





This is a photostory. It's basically a moving slide show set to music. There are some more pics in it than above. Lasts about 5 minutes. The music is by Kenji Kawaii(Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor). Good ambient stuff.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=95YT14TD