The day I was flying out of Narita was not a good day for weather. Another typhoon was approaching and the rain ahead of the storm had reached us. I did initially visit the viewing terrace in the terminal but, as the rain started, I decided to head inside and go to the Delta lounge which has a great view of the runway and the ramp. It wasn’t long before the heavens opened. Departures reversed direction as the wind shifted.
The arriving jets were now throwing up huge clouds of spray as they selected reverse. Combined with the heavy rain already, they were pretty obscured. Editing the photos allows you to do a lot of work with the contrast to bring out more of the detail but the real view was surprisingly limited. Some of the shots are so hidden by rain that there is little that can be done with them. Departures also did a good job throwing up lots of water in their wake.
The amount of moisture in the air meant the inlets would often be fogged, even for the jets that were landing. Trailing vortices were showing on climb out and there was lots of vapor over the wings after takeoff. The only downside to all of this was that the cloudy background makes it harder to apprecaite the effects that were on show. It does show, though, that a rainy day is not necessarily one to be ignored from a photography perspective. You can sometimes get some interesting shots in conditions that seem very unappealing. (It doesn’t hurt to be shooting this from indoors in a warm and dry room with a ready supply of food and beverages.)
A day trip to Kamakura was tagged on to the end of my visit to Japan. It was a train ride of about an hour south of Tokyo to a coastal town. We were heading there because of a large statue but that will get it’s own post in due course. Coming out of the station, we are immediately on a narrow street that is filled with food and shopping.
Kamakura is known for little fish called shirasu. They can be eaten raw or cooked and everywhere we went on this street, you could have shirasu added to your dish whether it was a hot dog or pizza. I chose not to try it out. Given the intense heat and humidity at this time of year, a lot of the food stands were devoted to ice cream and frozen foods. Not a bad idea. I wonder what they sell at cooler times of year.
