Hello, we’re hoping that you’re enjoying the last of the summer, we seem to be having some very cool starts to the day, reminds us of being in other parts of the world exploring the West Coast of America this time last year. Oh to be reminiscing. But the truth is we’re both quite happy in our lives back in the UK. We’ve had an amazing summer with the Olympics taking center stage and we’ve been busy freelancing in both of our professions whilst also managing to take the time to work on some of our own stuff too. Notworkrelated has launched it’s first shop and we have collection number 1 ready and waiting for your eager viewing.

So onto something Notworkrelated. Last week we took ourselves off to London and Brighton for a few days and along with Dave’s mum Barbara we ventured to the Paralympic Closing Ceremony having picked up some tickets a little while back. And WOW was this an event to be a part of. It was absolutely amazing with a soundtrack from Coldplay that just seemed to work so well with the performance throughout the night. It was a surreal experience and we kept having to pinch ourselves to check that we were really there! Well not quite but it was definitely an event to savor. Coldplay were fantastic and we were able to applaud the fantastic achievements of all the Paralympians along with the ever-so praised volunteers who really did make a significant contribution to the smooth running of the Olympics as a whole. Well done to you all and yes we felt very proud to be ‘Made in Britain’.

We were in London for the TeamGB parade taking place on Monday the 10th also and so thought it would be rude not to go and support our athletes and medalists who represented us at both the Olympics and the Paralympics. After a long wait we stood along with thousands of others on The Strand awaiting the team who were being driven on 30 or so big trucks. After an hour and a half and a few moans and groans later the athletes made their first appearance with Mo Farah and Jess Ennis on the first two floats followed by the rest of the athletics team. Helen even had a brief exchange with one of her friends from the Junior GB team who recognised her in the crowd, she was buzzing from this for the rest of the day! But along with this moment it was great to cheer on and congratulate Olympic and Paralympic legends such as Sir Chris Hoy, Ben Ainslee and Ellie Simmonds. It was another special moment that we wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.

Onwards we went to The National Portrait Gallery where Road to 2012 was being showcased featuring works by 8 photographers whose insightful portraiture celebrates exceptional British sportspeople, and some of the crucial figures working behind the scenes. With photographers such as Anderson & Low on show this was something that we both wanted to go and view and having had our Olympic experience it felt very relevant too. We also purchased the book Road To 2012 a National Portrait Gallery publication which holds great significance to the likes of Helen who has a strong interest in Sports portraiture. The exhibition is on until the 23rd September 2012.

Through the power of Twitter Dave had been conversing with a follower and managed to arrange for us to go to a design talk at the British Design Museum located on Shad Thames. The talk was again Olympic themed but perhaps on a more interesting level of design focusing on Design Munich ’72 with guest speaker Ian McLaren who was part of the design team for Munich. It was a really interesting discussion centering around McLaren’s involvement in Design Munich along with the importance of lead designer Otl Aicher whose work has become highly influential upon design as it is today.

The project was huge and without the technology as we are surrounded by today, the deadlines were strict and the planning very thorough. The use of colour and horizontal lines is consistent throughout and there was an advancement of pictograms for Munich which have been used and developed in so many contexts since. The conversation then went onto discuss London 2012 design which managed to stir some interesting views in the audience including one designer who has worked on the current branding and who was quite defensive of her role on the project. The ‘Branding Police’ were in the room!

It definitely gave us a lot to talk about on the way home and when we got to Helen’s parents we found an ‘Illustrated London News Special Publication’ showcasing some of the design work attached to Munich ’72. Jan Roscoe competed in Munich 72 and Montreal 76 as a 400m runner for Great Britain.

The next morning we drove to Brighton which took an hour and a half from London by car. We’d decided to use Airbnb for our Brighton accommodation which has been our first UK experience. Our hosts were here to welcome us, but we weren’t expecting a young baby nor were we expecting the house to be only partly complete! Perhaps this is part of the risk of going through Airbnb, although we did have the top floor to ourselves including a nice roof terrace area where we ate our breakfast in the morning sun each day. They were friendly enough but we figured we have probably experience the best Airbnb has to offer with our hosts in LA, Seattle and Melbourne coming up trumps. Anyway the benefits were we stayed in a good location on the northern side of central Brighton close to Queens Park and not too far from a good cluster of restaurants and it did have a nice homely feeling about our accommodation which always helps.

We had been scheduled to do a photography talk in Brighton which has now been postponed until the end of November and so we decided to go all the same and enjoy the seaside city for a few days. We enjoyed the food scene the most, Brighton is home to many a good restaurant, bar and cafe and we couldn’t help but indulge in this scene with The Black Dove, and Food For Friends coming up trumps. We enjoyed local cider and lovely vegetarian food at these places and we also loved our little sitting in an authentically Mexican place; La Chozo in the North Laines side of town. It was good to explore the Lanes and feel the vibe Brighton has to offer along with having fun with our own photography at Brighton Pier.

It was quite busy but we did hear that perhaps it’s best to visit off season so we are already looking forward for a short return visit in November and perhaps we’ll be doing some of our Christmas shopping there too. Oh no we already said it…Christmas shopping! Eek! Too soon!

Anyway back to the grind, in case you missed it we launched a collaborative wedding photography site this week too; HelenPlusDavid. Yep things have been busy for us on the Itsworkrelated side but we hope to do more of this again soon. Enjoy!

In case you’ve been out of the country or have had your eyes and ears shut these past few weeks, London has hosted the 2012 Olympic Games and what a fortnight it has been. The coverage has been pretty immense and both through the television and radio waves and we have been hooked. Inspire a Generation…Inspire Roscoe and Rutter too!

We were lucky enough to get our hands on some Olympic tickets for London 2012 thanks to the Roscoe parents putting in a successful bid for the first night of Track and Field and we also picked up some tickets for the Women’s Team Foil Fencing event taking place at the Excel Arena.

It has to be said that we loved our Olympic experience. Starting with the fencing, which neither of us have any prior knowledge of we just liked the thought of getting to one of the lesser known Olympic sports. En-route we were greeted with Thai tourists eagerly anticipating one of their top table tennis players, always drawn to a group shot we couldn’t resist sneaking one there and then.

In the Excel arena Boxing, Judo, Table Tennis and Badminton were all taking place with more events going on there in the second week of action. Within the fencing competition we saw lots of competitive action too and Team GB were out in force attempting to go through the rounds. Fencing is tough to follow but we could tell who were the favorites  through the rounds with Italy and France having the most International support in the crowd. Happening in the Excel arena that day also saw an epic Judo silver medal from Team GB’s Gemma Gibbons, so there was a lot of buzz at Excel throughout.

The next day we were so excited to be taking our turn at the Olympic Athletics Stadium accompanied by Jan and Den (Helen’s parents). We’d been staying in Bromley for a few days and were very pleased with the transport links, the underground ran smoothly all around central London and the free Zone 1-9 railcards which came with the tickets were well used. For our final night we opted to camp with the parents out in Theydon Bois. A campground that is right next to the train station and a 25 minute ride to the Olympic Park. Perfect.

Once we were in the Olympic Park we were greeted by a pretty slick security procedure and thousands of people doing the same, so another thumbs up on that side of things too. The amount of people in the park was amazing, quite overwhelming and the buzz was so exciting. We managed to explore the park pretty well walking towards and around many of the other sporting venues finishing our stroll in Park Live where a large double sided screen attracted even more thousands of people checking out the action in the velodrome. For some people this was where they would watch the action from. Perhaps our biggest criticism about the park was that they could have done with more screens around as there were big queues for getting into Park Live, which at peak times operated on a one-in-one-out basis.

At 6pm we made our way to our seats in the Olympic Stadium, spotting Catherine Merry on the way in doing her bit for Five Live Sport. We were quite high up in the stadium with seats pretty much opposite the 100m finish. After the initial excitement and photographs of us in there surrounded by nearly 80,000 others doing the same we started to enjoy the action. Greg Rutherford was going in the long jump qualifying, little did we know we were watching a champion in the making and also Jess Ennis competed in both the shot put and 200m as part of her Olympic winning performance. It was all quite overwhelming at times and Helen had to fight back a few tears each time the roars from the crowd got behind a home athlete, especially Ennis, she is a little star!

We also saw the 100m qualifying rounds which saw race after race go under 11 seconds, fast!! The women’s discus qualifying took place and the men’s shot put final saw the heavy weights in action with the finishing event being the light-weights in the women’s 10,000m final. Never has a stadium applauded such an event on the first night of action. Jan and Den were in Athens and Beijing and were astounded by the support.

Our biggest annoyance was the use of music whilst competitors were trying to achieve their physical peak performance. Music pumping straight into the audience was just a little too much at times when trying to concentrate on a certain event. We appreciate that they were appealing to the mass audience who want to see a show, and perhaps this compensated a little for the price of tickets…who knows, surely the athletic performance is a show enough in itself? And why Ben Sheppard was there…it’s not X-Factor, this is the Olympic Games!

Taking this aside we were thrilled with our Olympic experience and wanted to go again and again to support the athletes from around the world, competing at the highest level. This is something to be admired and we felt proud that the British pulled off a fantastic games, a wonderful Olympic Park and look at where we finished on the medal table, fourth, wow! Not bad for a country of 60 million!

In September we’re back in the Olympic Stadium for the Paralympic closing ceremony and in between we may try to sneak in a few tickets for Paralympic action, which is set to have more of a following than in any other Paralympic Games in history.

We were pretty excited about the fact that we’d pre-booked some ground passes for the mighty Aussie Open Tennis Championship and on the 27th we were there to support our very own Andy Murray and on the finals night who knows what would happen. Its always the case when you get to a big event trying to find your bearings and suss out whats going on and where and so we feel that we didn’t really get the best from our ground passes. However we did some an impressive female wheelchair doubles tennis final which was really good and definitely an interesting display to watch and support. We also got a few games from some of the junior girls and boys semi-finals along with having a good old nosey around the stalls and took advantage of their free giveaways.

It was a really hot day to be out in the sun and so when we found out where Andy Murray would be warming up for the semi-final that night against Djokovic we decided to fight the un and got a really good spot to watch the practice. We waited….and waited…and more fans were gathering around, but after an hour and 15 we realised it wasn’t happening, Andy Murray had let us down, well not quite but it was a little annoying to be told this is where he would be and then only find out after so long that he was training elsewhere. It was too late by this point to find out where he was as we needed to find ourselves a spot to watch the match from. Fortunately for Helen we’d spotted Nadal practicing earlier on in one of the bigger courts, although he was a little far away she got very excited about seeing the star play.

We opted for the Garden City seating area which is behind the Rod Lever Arena, all the seats were taken by this point and so we found a little spot on the grass. The support for Murray was huge, we were really surprised to see lot’s of Scottish flags, face painted supporters and crazy wig wearing Scots. It meant there was a good atmosphere though and dotted around were a few Serbian supporters too. The main problem for us being where we were is that the atmosphere just didn’t quite get on board with the game as much as we thought it would, although the support was there it just wasn’t quite exciting enough and after a slow start from Murray it was pretty quiet. We have to admit we didn’t stay to watch the end of the match we we later learned was more intense and it was very close between the pair, but after Helen snoozed her way through a few games we decided to catch a train home before missing the transport links back to Glen Waverley. Murray just lost out in the end so we now knew that it was Djokovic and Nadal through to the final, it was going to be a good one!

For the finals night on the 29th it was a very different story for us indeed. We once again had ourselves a pair of ground passes which for $19 was really good value, the only thing that kept nagging us was that we knew how good it would be if we could be in the main arena. It was also easier as we were familiar with the set up and so we found ourselves taking advantage of the Dove stand which was giving away loads of goodies, so after stocking up we went for a mooch around the smaller courts. The same one where Nadal had been practising a few days before we spotted Djokovic getting ready for the big game, this was very cool indeed and so we stayed a while watching him play.

We started thinking about the big match and decided to ask if we would be able to upgrade our tickets to arena tickets, but only if there were 2 available for us so that we could be together. We were sent away at one point but the second time round they conveniently managed to find 2 tickets together and so we decided to bite the bullet and go for it, we would only be in this situation once. The cost was a sting to the wallets but we have been really budget conscious since arriving in Australia and this was our big activity. So into the arena we were and it suddenly we were watching live Doubles Finals tennis, a bit of a step up from where we were the other day.

It was a while before the Men’s Singles Final but the anticipation was immense with awards ceremonies, and music to get everyone in the mood. At 7.30pm the final was announced and before long Nadal and Djokovic were making their entrances. This was built up to be a fantastic match and it really didn’t let us down, it felt like the support was on Nadal’s side for much of the match but there was definitely enough admiration and support for Djokovic to keep him going. Nadal started out on fire and won the first set but then lost it for the next 2. We were getting worried as we knew that if we were to stay until the end of the match we wouldn’t make our train connections back that night and so we hoped for a 5 setter. It didn’t look like this was going to happen but halfway through the 4th set Nadal came back amazingly and took the 4th with a tie breaker. Yes!! We would be here for a little while yet.

The 5th set was equally entertaining and enthralling, we couldn’t believer the sheer power, strength and determination on display. Both men were fighting till the very end and their athleticism is one to be remembered for a very long time, not to mention the amount of pressure on them from the audience and millions of viewers world wide. Well we all know the ending, Djokovic won and came-back to take the 5th set and the title, we felt for Nadal but at the end of the day the best man won and we felt really happy with the fact that we’d witnessed 6 hours of tennis history. One for the records!!

The ceremonies and speeches mean’t that we didn’t leave the arena until after 2.30am which was good news for us as the first train back to our suburb was at 5.15am so we didn’t have too long to wait. Melbourne CBD felt pretty safe for us, a McDonalds was open 24 hours which helped for a while before we rested at the entrance to the train station. There were enough people around who were in a similar position to us so we didn’t feel too alone. Back in the comforts of our bed we slept for most of the next morning until lunch time and heading out to meet up with friends.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We were up fairly early, enjoyed our usual breakfast; fruit, cereal and yoghurt, packed up the tent and our belongings and set off on the next part of our journey. It took around 5 hours to reach the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with a few stops along the way. Our route from Zion took us out of the north exit of Zion National Park, along the 89 and 89a to  rejoin the 89 and exit onto the 64 which took us straight towards the Grand Canyon Village. We noticed many native American stalls on the road side as we drove, of which over half were empty, a sign of the times.

Our first stop at the Canyon was along the East Rim Drive at Desert View. We had lunch and took in our first proper views of the canyon in the Watchtower, a building built to fit in with the landscape… kind of! Inside are some really interesting wall murals and to be fair the views were amazing. Moving on from Desert View we made our way to the Mather Campground where we had booked to camp for 2 nights at $18 per night.

After setting up the tent we drove out to Pipe Creek Vista and picked up the yellow shuttle bus to Yaki Point. We stayed here until the sun set, photographed, meditated and joined in with the fellow onlookers. The canyon turned from red, to yellow to blue over the course of time. On our way back we picked up some supplies for dinner at the Market Plaza and then enjoyed our first showers in 3 days!

The following morning we were up early and ready for a hike. We had looked into a few options for hikes down into the canyon and knew that making it to the canyon floor in a day and back out again was out of the question (and not advised by the rangers). So we looked at day options and chose the Hermit’s Rest trail so we could enjoy the views and hike without so many tourists. This time we drove into the village and took the red bus shuttle to Hermits Rest. The trail down is steep and we would only recommend it if you have some hiking experience. In the heat and at this time of year we were still advised to take more water and food than normal. It took around an hour and a half to reach the Santa Maria spring where we logged into the trail book, enjoyed some rest and then continued for a further mile before having lunch and making our way back up. It actually took less than we had anticipated at around 4 hours total hike but again it was steep and getting back up out of the canyon was tough. We endeavor to come back and do a 3 day hike down into the canyon floor and out again sometime in the future!!

Not satisfied with the 7′ish miles we continued to walk along the rim for a further 5 before getting back to the car in the village. This was to be our last night of camping in America, so we enjoyed more camp food, showers and an episode of Peep Show (we have been religiously watching and downloading all series since we have travelled!).

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We got up at 4.30am and would have been ready to leave by 5am if Helen hadn’t contracted a pretty bad tummy bug over-night, hmmm we weren’t sure if she’d get through the day so in went the Imodium and a re-hydration sachet and we hoped that it wouldn’t spoil things too much. Deciding to take it a little more leisurely than the night before we arrived at Angkor Wat at 5.45am and made our way into the temple site. It was already rammed with tourists all lined up along the front walls, smaller shrines and the lake at the front of the Wat. There must have been at least a thousand people there already, we hung around there for a bit and then decided to go into the temple itself and took in the warmth of the light on the buildings as the sun came up. There weren’t many people inside the grounds of the temple so it was very peaceful and away from the mass of tourists at the front. We walked around the grounds for about an hour and then went back to the front to find that most people had left and were missing the beautiful sight of the sun starting to peep over the huge pagodas in the middle, very strange!

After a croissant or two (for Dave) we rode the 13km journey back to Ta Prohm, this time we were able to get into the temple site. There were quite a few tour groups there but didn’t seem too busy when we walked around the site. This is the one you’ll see in all the photos…the one with the tree routes entangled around the old temple ruins. WOW! It really is an amazing site, they are leaving it to allow the trees and nature make their impressive marks, although there is some construction work going on. We managed to avouch the tour groups by going off in other directions. We ended up spending over an hour at this site and loved it.

Moving on from Ta Prohm we cycled along the route to Ta Keo this time climbing up the steep steps on the side of the temple up towards a tower that takes you 50 metes in height. There are wonderful views from the top and we managed to find ourselves a spot in the shade on the side of one of the towers where we people watched.

Following the route along we cycled through The Victory Gate and parked up at the north-east side of the central area of Angkor Thom taking in the Terrace of Elephants, The Terrace of the Leper King and Phimeanakas. All impressive and in the heat of the midday sun again seemingly missing the tour groups and main bulk of visitors. Following on from this we cycled only a little further to Bayon where we spent around an hour taking in the 216 enormous grinning faces built by the King of the God Kings; Jayavarman VII around the 13th century. It’s hard to imagine these enormous temples being built and the amount of effort t must have taken, each bettering the other it seems impossible that man was able to create these temples one after the other.

Our last stop on the route back to Angkor Wat was Phnom Bakheng and took less than 5 minutes from Bayon. There is a path up a small hill to this temple but as it is the highest temple on the site when we reached the top we were rewarded with fine views across the forests over other temple sites and Angkor Wat was creeping above the tree tops. This would be an ideal place to see the sunrise or set over the area as there are good views from both sides, the only downside being that nearly all tour groups will head there at around 4.30pm to get a good spot for the sunset. It’s not a huge temple either so we imagine it would be very cramped and difficult to get a good spot, so we left at just after 4pm and already the buses were starting to park up and the food stalls were waiting in anticipation.

On our way back we stopped off at Angkor Wat one last time and pestered some tourists into taking some photos of ourselves as all day either one of us was photographing the other and we had none together. We stayed for a short while and then decided to head back to Siem Reap, it had been a long day and we’d managed much more than we thought we would have been able to, Helen was also ready for some rest.

Back in Siem Reap we once again ventured to the Blue Pumpkin to stock up on breakfast, ate out with Doug and Emma and then walked around the very contrived, tourist night market before going back to get ready for the next off. We did enjoy Siem Reap with our main reason being that Angkor Wat is a very impressive and amazing site to visit, Siem Reap itself though very much felt like a Greek holiday Island resort. The market was almost too clean, the night-market appeared to be made from some kind of film set and most restaurants charge a lot for the pleasure. We were happy to be moving on.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Having visited the Forbidden City on a previous week we missed Tiananmen Square, so we decided to head that way and have a look. Subway line 1 is always very busy and today did not disappoint however we battled our way through the crowds and made it in one piece. Security is very tight at Tiananmen Square, but if you have nothing to hide you wont have any issues, the obligatory X-Ray scanners are put through their paces in Beijing’s Subway stations and check points. The percentage of plain clothes officers and military wandering around in the crowds would be an interesting fact to find out!

We wandered around the square with the other hundreds of Chinese tourists and felt the very patriotic grasp of China through flags, massive TV screens with more flags and music on loop, stone monoliths, the museum where you can visit Chairman Mao himself (preserved in a glass coffin for all to see) and large socialist “can do / power to the people” statues. We did not go to see Mao but you can still feel the past here in many ways. China is moving forward but relics of the past will be a continuous reminder of a grander/darker side depending on which side you lean towards.

Not too far from the historic and splendor of Tiananmen we went in search of Beijing’s underground city streets. Instead we found the deprived areas of Beijing with falling down Hutongs and streets, a big contrast from where we had come from. The underground city was closed (possibly due to safety concerns) so we headed for a Chinese massage which had been recommended to us. We eventually found the venue and enjoyed a 60 minute session at The Dragonfly Retreat which we both loved. Very low light, serene music and the full body massage were a lethal combination, Helen fell to sleep at one point! All for a bargain price of £15 each.

Within walking distance is the more commercial street Wangfujing. Here you have department stores and old electronics shops that appear to be waiting their doom as construction is happening all around. St Joseph’s Church is a little further up Wangfujing and as we approached there appeared to be some kind of fude going on in the grounds of the church. Like the locals we decided to have a little nosey at what was happening. We saw a bride wrapped up in a man’s coat, whilst her husband to be argued with an official from the church. The police were on the scene and there was some kind of dispute surrounding them having their wedding photos taken on the grounds of the church. They were all still there 15 minutes or so later and the bride and groom did not appear to budge from their request.

We have seen quite a few couples having their wedding photographs taken in Beijing, it’s a common site especially around the 798 area. We heard from a friend that they have their wedding photos done here one year before their wedding day!! So on the surface is the bride dressed in a beautiful dress, hair and make-up styled professionally and underneath is a pair of jeans and trainers with a coat nearby to cover themselves up. The wedding photography industry is booming here apparently! We can see why!

5 minutes further down the street and you find the city’s most famous snack street. Although this is relatively new to the city it is a short strip of several food stalls selling anything from souvenir tat to fried wriggling scorpions and star fish ready to eat, if you so desire. We passed on the offer of a char-grilled chicken fetus on a stick! We decided not to opt for the snack street that day. This really is one for the gallery! Street food in China is a big thing and we have seen people with sticks of fruit coated in sugar happily scoffing down this sweet treat. We purchased this Winter Beijing snack and can see why people love them, they are great, like little soft brambly apples covered in syrup, if you have a sweet tooth you would be hooked!

We headed back to the apartment and cooked up our own evening meal of noodles, vegetables and tofu in a soy sauce.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Early morning rise at 5.45am saw us take photos of the pink sunrise on Mt Fuji, the best light of the day. Dave went back for more zzz’s and Helen did some yoga.

Our western style breakfast echoed some likeness to what we would have in England; fried egg, hash brown and coffee, add to this a twist of Japanese with soup, salad, vegetables, fruit and yoghurt and it was enough to keep us going until 4pm! Never have we been faced by such well presented food cooked with care and imagination.

On our way into Kawaguchiko they told us they were going to watch their sons fight in a Kendo tournament. We asked if we could go to watch thinking it would be really cool for us to see and document. They didn’t mind taking us and thought it was funny that we wanted to go. It was well worth it though as we saw something that not many other tourists would be able to witness. A sports hall full of children fighting as a team but each time it is one vs one that takes the stage to fight. They are dressed traditionally in Kendo costume and fight with a wooden sword. Hiromi explained the technique and how to win points whilst her youngest daughter Coco-lo posed for photos for us. Their friends were there too with their children so we sat with them and joined in the local support for their team. It really was a fantastic experience and again demonstrated the kindness of our hosts. Taking a break from their sons first fight who demolished his opposition in less than one minute they drove us into Kawaguchiko and left us to explore the area.

It all seems a little dated to us, something that looks like it’s hey day was 20 years ago and nothing has really changed since. We found some good backstreets to explore, the lake had great views of the mountainous region and there was some filming going on – it happens quite a lot here, so we sat and guessed at what may be the point of their project, we decided on a soap opera!

Whilst walking we found a cafe that sold chai based on the outskirts of the village in a large greenhouse. By day a funky cafe and by night a pool-bar/club a really bizarre little find and we wished we could have been there at night. The main reason we stopped was that we couldn’t locate the path to the Fuji shrine, the maps tend not to mark all of the roads and if a path is marked on a map its not always marked on the street! This has at times caused us great confusion and frustration, but we always find a way around it. This time we called for a taxi and got a lift to the shrine…naughty but with limited time until dusk and after last night’s rushed walk in the dark sometimes you have to do these things. Taxi’s are not cheap here though and a 10 minute journey cost us around £15. Still we got to the shrine and it provided us with enough worth to validate the cost of the taxi. Set at the foot of Mount Fuji from the Fuji-Yoshida side you have a large temple with lot’s of other smaller shrines surrounding as well as statues, preserved trees, fresh water fountains, sculptures, flags you name it this temple had it. It really felt like a very spiritual place though and had a real historic feel to it. We found one of the paths to start the trek to station 5 but after a few km decided to go back and make use of the hot baths at the Ryokan.

A short bus ride back and we returned to Inn Fujitomita, we enjoyed the healing properties of the spring, managed to rest our feet and sat for our 2nd evening meal here. This was even better than the first night, again the photos prove our point. Seriously the best variety and flavour of food so far in Japan, and with such a beautiful setting it really was idealic. We were set up for a good night’s sleep after a long day of walking and decided on our route to Takayama for the following day.

We loved our stay at Inn Fujitomita and most definitely recommend it if you ever get the chance to come to the area.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)