Beach and a Busted Toe.....

A couple of my friends and I decided to wander around the coastline of Sasebo. We walked about 10km total by the end of the day. it gave me the chance to get off the ship, and experiment with my brand new lenses.... Here is a little of what we saw....

Umm.... A butterfly.

Niko munching on a snickers bar. That's Karl in the reflection in Niko's shades.

Karl's face.... Yeah. I'm not much for captions at the moment.

A bird of prey. Eagle? Hawk? I'm not sure. I may need to hire a raptor specialist when my site gets a bit bigger.... 

The sandstone along the shore was AMAZING! It brought back memories of slot canyons deep in the deserts of the Southwestern United States. 

Blake's feet. 

My Feet. 

More sandstone.

So I decided towards the end of the day to go for a swim... I decided also by default to be a total knuckle head while entering the water, and step on some sharp coral and slice my big toe wide open. Nothing a little super glue can't fix (really. I did). 

The Sunset 

Ai Shite Imasu Koibito. =)

Kiyono and her great smile.

On top of Mt. Sufuri

Sasebo Bridge at night. 

LONG OVERDUE......

As the title of this post suggests, this is long overdue. It has been nearly 2 months since my last photo post, and it is way past time to show you what I have been up to. Enjoy!

A Heron hunts for fish along the shores of a lake in Fukuoka Park, Fukuoka, Japan.

A friend holding a crab on the coast of Japan somewhere.

A Kelly Slater signed surf board in the Quicksilver shop in Tokyo!

Blake mowing down on some sushi.

Kumamoto Castle

A street in Sasebo.

Karatsu Castle flower garden/grounds.

The view of the coast from Karatsu Castle.

Karatsu gardens. 

Trees that are anything but straight growing near the coast of Japan.

Guess Who..

An amazingly perfect Cedar forest at the base of Mt. Sefuri which Kiyono and I hiked.

The trail up Sefuri.

Life outside "The Fence"..... This tree made me feel like I was missing out on a lot.

Antelope Canyon, As Requested.

Recently I had a friend request (enjoy JIM!) that I put up some of my photos from Antelope Canyon in Northern AZ. These were taken hand held 6 years ago with my first digital camera - a Pentax Optio S5i, a 5.1 mp point and shoot. As is usually the case, it's more about the archer, and less about the arrow, if you know what I mean. =)

The entrance to Antelope Canyon, known world wide for it's amazing colors, and wind, water and sand formed sandstone walls. Slot canyons start out as sand dunes that become compacted into sand stone over thousands of years....... 

The Corkscrew (looking UP from the canyon floor).
Over time the top layer of sand covering the sandstone is worn away by flash floods. The flash floods travel across the desert floor with great force and begin to wear away at the cracks and weak spots in the sand stone....

The Corkscrew, again. =)
Over a period of thousands of years the wash becomes deeper, and deeper, cutting further into the sandstone, and pushing out more of the rock and sand.....

"The Joker"
Until you have.......

"The Laser"
A slot canyon/skinny cave/they have lots of names. These canyons can be as large and deep as cathedrals, or barely big enough to squeeze through. In the Grand Circle area of the Southwest (S. UT, N. AZ, and parts of S. Colorado) there are over 300 known slots. Some of them are only a few hundred feet long or shorter, and others are measured in miles, like Water Holes Canyon in Paige, AZ. 

SASEBO In A Different Light - AT NIGHT!

I recently bought a shiny new SLIK carbon-fiber tripod. Since I got all geeked out about it, I figured I would put it to good use and walk around Sasebo at night and shoot some scenes I had been noticing, but not shooting. Most of these shots are right around 25 seconds long at f/5-6.3 (except for the first one...) with minimal tweaking here and there in Aperture 3. Hope you like 'em.
-PK

A couple more from Thailand that I missed....

This is a view of the luxurious port we pulled into in Pattaya, Thailand... 

And some locals and their bus bar. We spent some time here and had good conversation with them. Super nice people. 

Thailand!

I recently had the opportunity to go to Thailand and put my talents and my camera to work.

For me, Thailand started off with a service project. Going to deliver some toys (soccer balls, volley balls, etc) and play games with Thai kids didn't sound like your typical service project. AND... It wasn't. They greeted us with hand made leis....

Then some of the girls performed a few traditional Thai dances.

And then the kids were let loose. They were an energetic bunch to say the least. It doesn't matter where you go in the world - Kids are KIDS. 

After playing for a few hours, we were taken across the street to see one of the temples. It seemed an odd contrast for combat boots to be lined up outside a Buddhist temple. 

Some of the locals of the area worshipping inside the temple. Fortunately they were tolerant of nosey white dudes with cameras....

To finish up the day the teachers and students of the school made us pad thai! It was some of the best food I have had. Food is always better when it's home made. We went there to serve them, but in the end I felt like I left with more than I came. It was a great experience, and a little humbling to be served by those you are supposed to be serving. 

The next day I had a day off, I went for a walk around Pattaya to take some photos and see what was around.

The infamous WALKING STREET. Not as impressive (or dangerous...) as it is at night. This was my only opportunity for a photo. I'm not sure I could post a night scene shot of this place without having an age restriction set on my blog....

These flowers were just growing on the side of the street. I'm always struck by the bright colors of plants in this part of the world.