Still in Kyoto. Today was a very fruitful day in many ways. The best thing is, I found a place that has computers that aren’t crippled. This means I can back up the photos from my MP3 player on the portable hard drive I brought along. This is very good, because when you are trying to shoot as much as you can in RAW, a 20-gig MP3 player just isn’t going to hold a lot of pictures.

Not that I’m shooting THAT many. I’m mostly trying to relax and enjoy traveling, enjoy standing in the middle of temples and feel the cool breeze, sun on skin, hear the trickling of little ponds and the cries of the very oddly colorful cicadas, smell that forest smell. I love that in Kyoto you can smell forest smell only a few hundred meters from a 7-11. I sometimes look around at the people who are mostly walking around staring at the viewscreens on the backs of the cameras, and I can’t help but feel they’re missing something.

I know, Susan Sontag wrote something about this. I haven’t read it, though. I do hasve to say that some things just beg to be photographed, though, and that traveling can sensitize you to them. But photographing buildings that have been photographed by a million other people, many with better equipment, that I just don’t really get. But it’s not like I’m taking no pictures myself, either!

Tonight’s my last night in the city — tomorrow morning, early, I take off for Hiroshima, where I spend one day and night. I bounce through Okayama the next day, just to get a look at Naoshima (an island that’s basically covered in museum), and then up to Tokyo. From there, it’s more slippery, but I’ll likely be making a day-trip with friends to Hakone just before hitting Yokohama and WorldCon.

By the way, I’ve never attended a Con. I expect it to be very weird. Any thoughts, suggestions, advice?