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kyotokyo 2011

ah japan, how i love thee. this having been my fourth time visiting the country, one could argue my fascination with japan borders on fanaticism. and hey, it’s possible. i have no loyalties to my own cultural upbringings, heritage, whatevers…i can love america and taiwan, and still have a profound appreciation for japan.

so having said that, with all my trips to japan ever being awesome, and my last trip there especially being all kinds of awesome, this trip still had to live up to three prior trips of pancaking layers of super. this trip was actually a bit of a last-minute vacation. i had already taken a vacation that year…to beijing. which was meh, but nevertheless still a vacation. my cousin cindy, who i’d kept in touch with since our trip back in 2007 and one of only a handful who was fluent in english (she was raised in new zealand), messaged me saying that she would be studying in kyoto for a year. and since we’d had a prior chat about how i loved japan, etc, she said i should come visit. i thought for about a millisecond, then said “fuck yea” and proceeded to book tickets and hotels. not long after that, word got around my office that i was off to vacation in japan, so the director of communications asked me if i wanted to do a presentation of my vacation when i got back. i figured…sure, why not? a week or so before i flew out, i had a thought tho. slideshow presentations are boooring, and i hate making boooring presentations. so i thought i’d make a time-lapse video while i was there. i’d always wanted to make one, and it seemed like a nice evolutionary step from my usual photo-ing.

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