I’m sure that many of you out there, especially our regular readers, are familiar with the Digicamblog Theorum. It goes something like so:

Digital Camera + Thirst For Adventure + Random Opportunity = Good Blog Entry Material.

This theorum is, of course, the driving theorum behind our blog. Pictures tell lots of words, and they tell them way faster than we can write them. And that’s good, because we don’t have time to write that much anyway. Well, last week was no exception; I was coming home from school, and I was watching the sun sink low in the horizon through the train window, when all of a sudden, it hit me–this is a perfect opportunity to get to some sunset pictures of Funehiki. So I lost no time; I hopped off the train and jogged a good 20 minutes up a big hill towards the highest elevation that I could find. It took a lot of breath, and a pretty treacherous climb up a flat 60 degree hill (with my bag in hand, mind you), but once I got there, I commanded a fantastic overlook of the town and surrounding hills. I took about 50 pictures in the space of 45 minutes or so, including the entire sunset from start to finish. I then tossed out the 40 that were redundant, and boom! The Digicamblog Theorum proves itself true yet again!

So, without further adieu, hesitation, or delay, allow me to share some pictures of our beautiful town…

This is a shot of downtown Funehiki just before sun-down. I’ll probably never see the town lit up quite like this again–sort of grey around the edges with a shot of gold right down the middle. The colors were quite striking in person! In the high-res version, you can even see Wakakusa English School off in the distance, but this is the web-friendly (and detail-unfriendly) version. Sorry. And yes, that mountain in the background is Mt. Katazone, the one we climbed back in October. Heh, heh, heh–we totally conquered that thing, dude! 🙂

A close-up of the town, and another example of the unique lighting that the town was bathed in. Note that not including the sky in the shot made the rest of the frame much brighter and almost washed-out–that’s how bright that center beam of golden light was. Note also the proliferation of evergreen trees on the mountain-side, which keep the place from becoming too drab and brown in winter. (For all you Funehiki denizens who might be wondering, these pictures were taken near Funehiki High School.)

Ah, here it is–this is the shot that I set out to get, and I got it! Is this great or what–this is the kind of shot than an amatuer photographer like me loves to get. And just think–this was taken in JAPAN!!! It practically boggles the Western mind… Anyway, you can see just how mountainous our area is by looking into the distance–it’s mountains all the way into the horizon. And the colors are so warm, you don’t even think about it being the dead of winter when it was taken. Ah… It’s nice to know that all that standing alone for almost an hour on a high hill on a cold, windy, near-freezing day was worth it. 🙂

Last and least , I took this shot on my way back home–I just turned around and there it was. It’s not as cool as the other ones, but it’s got a sort of unique flare all its own. And it makes a great Windows desktop! (Seriously, if you want any of these, go right ahead. Douzo .)

And then, I had to climb down from the hill I was on. Only problem was, it was like a 60-degree angle, so there was no way I could climb or even walk down that thing. But no worries–with a little quick thinking and the movie feature on my camera, the solution presented itself:

And yes, my sunglasses stayed on my head the whole time!

Have digital camera, will blog…

-Mike