I found out today that Google Maps now has street view for Koyoto (I should have realised this when I posted the map the other day).

Anyway, the aforementioned teahouse can be found in this view. You’ll want to stand at this point, to catch geisha entering/exiting the teahouse, geisha coming from the alleyway, and geisha coming from behind.

There’s a new season on BBC4, regarding Japanese Culture.

Check it out.

Geiko (Geisha)

Originally uploaded by mindfieldz

I was recently looking over my most popular Flickr photographs, and I came accross this one, shown to the right.

I visited Japan in May 2008, and one of the biggest highlights was seeing a real geisha in Kyoto (not to be confused with normal Japanese women in nice kimono’s). Lonely Planet, and Rough Guide don’t really give you an indication of where to find geisha, only that they’re “in Gion”.

After some frantic goggling, in a ryokan in Kyoto, I eventually found hints tucked away in a photography blog. Matching against a Japanese google maps, I convinced my wife to follow me to a side street in Gion.

Success! I’d managed to find the Ichiriki-tei Teahouse, the most prestigious teahouse in Gion.

[flickr style="border: 1px solid #5A5A5A"]set:72157615254849529[/flickr]

So, if you want to get awesome photos of geisha, follow the instructions below.

1. Get yourself to Gion, in Kyoto.
2. Locate the Ichiriki-tei Teahouse, this can be found just off the main street in Gion. On google maps, it’s the C-shaped grey building.
3. Wait until about 5:30pm-7:30pm local time. Don’t get too close to the entrance of the teahouse, else someone will come out and ask you to move away from the entrance. Taxi’s and other vehicles pull up to the etrance, so be careful if you are attached to a camera lens.
4. You will know if you are in the right place at the right time, as a fairly large crowd will gather.
5. Best place to position yourself is at the corner of the teahouse, looking down the alleyway behind the building. Geisha will come from all directions!

That’s it. In about an hour I saw 7 geisha, which is not bad considering it was a random tip-off from another blog (whose address I’ve long forgotten).

[Edit: Just realised that latest WordPress upgrade managed to remove the photos I'd posted.]

In terms of the kit used to get the shots above:

Canon EOS 400D
18-55mm f3.6-5.0 Tamron lens.
55-200mm f3.6-5.0 Tamron lens.
Mostly 1/60 to 1/200 shots, handheld.

Be prepared to do a lot of running with a camera.

I am now back in the UK from my trip to Japan. I was back about two weeks ago, but I had to attend a SharePoint Developer training course in London. I am now completely competent in creating Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) features and webparts (yeah, right!).

As you can see, I’ve adjusted one or two things on the site. Notably I am now using a dynamic sidebar, which took me a little while to figure out. I’ve also uploaded a few more header images.

Originally uploaded by mindfieldz

It’s 9:00am, it’s raining, and I am in a small hotel waiting to make my way to Hakone.

If you’ve not already guessed, I am in Japan. I’ve been doing the standard tourist stuff; visiting the wards of Tokyo; seeing shrines in Nikko. Now I am waiting for the rain to subside before I can move on to our next location, Hakone.

It’s quite different out here, but similar in many ways. (Though its taken me 5 minutes more to write this, as the Japanese keyboard is laid out differently) Expect photos to appear on Flickr soon.