Welcome to my new blog, here goes nothing!

I recently had the opportunity to go to Japan for a few weeks to visit some friends and travel around seeing the country and taking photos. I had been there once before, for my friends Jim and Ayu's wedding, and quickly fell in love with the country, the people, the scenery, and the cities. When I got another invitation for my friend Tomoko's wedding, I just couldn't miss the chance to go back. I will be posting a semi-daily journal of my trip in the days/weeks to come. I will also be posting full galleries of photos on my archive site: archive.mikemclaughlin.com under Galleries . Collections. Or you can just click on the photos here to go directly to the photo galleries.

I will also be trying to keep up with blog posts in the future with interesting jobs and photos, so please feel free to register and share your thoughts in the comments area. Thanks and enjoy!

After leaving Newark on the morning of April 21st and arriving in Tokyo the afternoon of the 22nd, I was a little out of it for the first couple of days, and Tomoko and Kohei's wedding was in a couple of days. I kept the exploring to minimum until after the wedding, besides the weather was kind of crappy the first few days. We went to Ikebukuro on Friday, a shopping district in Tokyo, to get some things, walk around, etc. It was raining all day, but I grabbed a few cool shots of the crowds with their umbrellas. It sounds silly, but everyone has an umbrella when it's raining. Every store has an umbrella rack outside to leave them, and half the stores sell them, cheap. So for me, who never uses one, it's fun to see all of the umbrellas. I was also playing around with some photos on the train on the way home, trying to capture the feel and the layers of people on the train while I looked out the windows at Tokyo going by.

All photos ©2010 Mike McLaughlin/All rights reserved. www.mikemclaughlin.com