Goodbye Fukuoka

So, that's it! The time has come for me to leave Japan and with it must also end The Daily Shashin. It's been a fun little project and I'd like to thank all of you who have regularly visited this page and kept me motivated and encouraged by your comments and kind words.

I am now embarking on The Heneghan Half-World Tour which, after brief visits to Taipei and Hong Kong, will see me undertake the 14,000 km journey from Singapore to London by train and bus.

From Singapore I'll be passing through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, Mongolia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and finally the UK, so it promises to be a fantastic adventure, especially from a photographic perspective. I will leave Singapore on August 1st and I aim to arrive back in the UK in the first or second week of September. You can keep up-to-date on my trip via my other blog and I will try to make posts there as often as possible as I make my way home.

In the meantime if you want to see more photos please feel free to check out my Flickr page.

That's all for now, I'll be embarking on a new project in the autumn once I get back to sunny England!

Take care everyone!

Shouchu barrels, Iki Island

Total Body Balance

**There are only ten days left for me in Japan so there won't be many more posts from now on. Packing seems to be going extremely slowly and there are a million and one things I have to do before next week. Hopefully I'll get it all done without completely losing my mind!**

The Hi-Tones performing at last week's Kyushu Baila festival

I have lots of news! First, my Russian visa arrived to complete the set of four visas I'll be needing for my 'half-world tour' starting later this month (the other visas being Vietnam, China and Mongolia). My trip will involve over fifteen countries, lots of trains and three cameras! Can't wait to get started!

Second, in a remarkable twist of fate and rather miraculously back from the dead is my defunkt Sony Cybershot. I'd heard stories of people with damaged screens having them fixed for around 10,000 yen (approximately 70 euros) so I was eager to chance my luck. Imagine my surprise however when the staff at Kitamura Camera, one of the best camera chains in Japan, told me that due to widespread defects on the DSC-P92's CCD all units were eligible for repair at Sony's expense. Rather nice indeed, eh? So I got it repaired for nothing!

Now, if only I'd have known about this six months earlier! Never mind, the cranky old brick-like Cybershot is back in business and that's the most important thing. Now it feels like a small toy though compared to my hulking beast-like DSLR.

Schoolgirl watching baseball

Last week I went to see Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, the local baseball team, play the Orix. When the Hawks win they open up the stadium roof and you can see the Seahawk Hotel in the background from the stands. It takes about 20 minutes to open but it was well worth waiting behind after the game to see it.

Smoking corner, on a platform shot from the shinkansen

Tokyo taxi

Shibuya

In a world of her own, Ginza

Girls on the Yamanote Line

Shibuya night scene

Apologies for the lack of photos recently, I've been busy preparations for my upcoming 'half-world tour' as well as finding the time to squeeze in a four-day trip to Tokyo.

My time in Japan is coming to an end, and sadly with it so will the relatively short life of the Daily Shashin. "Ahhhhh! How sad!" I can hear you all cry. So, with only one month to go, I hope you all enjoy the last few weeks of my photos from Japan!

I was just taking random shots in Hakozaki Shrine on Monday when a young girl wandered into my line of fire. I realized she was a member of staff at the shrine souvenir shop and at first, thinking it would be a boring photo, I hesitated to shoot. But then I changed my mind, pressed the shutter and forgot about it...until today. And when I saw the photo this afternoon I was all of a sudden glad I decided to take the shot because I think I captured quite a nice moment, especially considering the background of the shrine disappearing into the distance and the fact that she's holding a big box of Asahi beer.

I've been busy these last few days. I went down to Oita to perform at the Concert on the Rock music festival (which was great fun by the way) and I was also asked to be one of the event's 'official' photographers. So all in all it was a pretty cool weekend for me! The above band is one of the best bands I've seen in ages, Aquabomb, who seriously rocked on Saturday night.


Another great band and good friends of mine, Nanbanjin


And a few more good friends of mine, Miwa, Kaori, Mika and Kiki

If you want to see more of my photos from the event, please go here.

Small car in the road

Heineken

This is one of my favourites from the Avispa vs FC Tokyo match last weekend

Avispa on the attack

FC Tokyo goalkeeper Hitoshi Shiota

It was sports day at junior high school this past weekend. As always I took a lot of pictures and this one was my clear favourite.

Coffee can in dirty pond

Portrait of a pigeon

Peanuts