Dragonflies and Kappa Sculptures

Yesterday was uminohi - Marine Day. We decided to go to Nakamura. Before leaving town, however, we stopped at the local concert hall to see a large collection of sculptures. The theme was kappa, a legendary water spirit. There were some truly impressive sculptures on display, and they ranged from fist-sized to about a metre high.

Below, you will find my top two pick as well as a slideshow of all the photos I took. Click the slideshow to view the album in its entirety.

A turtle-shelled kappa squatting on a gnarled tree - my top pick

A very unique snapshot of action - a sumo being effortlessly tossed

A slideshow of the exhibition

We ate lunch at McDonald's upon arriving in Nakamura. The weather was a bit funny - it rained on and off, as if temperamental rainclouds just kept moving across the sky constantly, sometimes dumping their contents unexpectedly as we found ourselves often caught without the means to deflect such reckless and sporadic precipitation and at other times scowling at us reprehensibly in preparation for another release of their contents.

Not that we didn't bring umbrellas on our excursion; we just didn't always have them with us as we went between car and shop.

After some shopping, we visited the tonbokouen - Dragonfly Park. Despite the drizzle, a few of the flying insects could be seen flitting from stem to stem near the ponds. We saw red, yellow, and black and white dragonflies, and even blue ones whose wings were of a solid hue as opposed to the usual veined, transparent appearance so prevalent in the genus. Suffice to say, I took what photos I could, as seen in the slideshow below (click to view album):

A slideshow of our visit to the tonbokouen

All in all, a nice day out. Had the weather been better, our visit to the Dragonfly Park may well have been more exciting, but as it is, I was happy to get a few closeups of these unique and beautiful creatures.

This was my first use of slideshows in these blog posts. If people like them, I may continue to use them in place of individual photos; except when I want to highlight a particular snapshot. Please leave a comment regarding my use of slideshows in this entry.

Peace.

Timotheos