屋久島

Here are my favorites of the pictures I took on Yakushima, which I do believe is my favorite of all the places in Japan I've been thus far. In fact, I'd say it's a top contender for the most beautiful place I've ever been. (The only other place that comes to mind as a possibility is Zion's National Park.) Apparently forests like these were once much more widespread, but nowadays it's pretty well limited to this island. These forests were the inspiration for those in Princess Mononoke, and you definitely get the feeling that you're in the presence of an arcane and eldritch primeval power when you're there. They say that if you touch the trees there, you can feel the energy of the spirits within.

“The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.” -Jack Kerouac

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