Japan’s landscape has changed over the more than 20 years that Japan Dreamscapes (JDS) photography workshop leaders have been carefully guiding clients, but recently there have been some dramatic changes brought about by the Super Typhoons tearing across huge swaths of the country.  In the past two months, the Super Typhoons left more than half a million residents in Chiba without electricity, and, even worse, the human toll has been significant.  If you want to read more about these typhoons, simply check into our earlier blogs for in-depth discussions of what type of destruction was wrought by the recent super typhoons.  Weather and environmental conditions are always on our minds, and once the winds died down a bit, our Japan Photo Workshop Leaders set out to witness the aftermath of the typhoons with their own eyes.

At JDS, we look at Japan and its natural environment as a microcosm as an indicator for the larger world.  After the last super typhoon, shocking amounts of waste, even greenery collected after the 2011 earthquake and nuclear disaster, made its way into the rivers around Japan.  We immediately thought about the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch which has grown precipitously over the past decade as we know that almost everyone uses something with plastic everyday.  Some artifacts in the swirling gyre of trash are more than 50 years old!  If you look closely at the photograph attached to this blog post, you’ll see pieces of plastic, perhaps cast off shopping bags or another remnant from the plastic that people use everyday.  When people should be enjoying the Japan Photo Workshop of a lifetime, forgetting all the distractions of their lives and living in the moment, they are drawn out of their photographic focus on a beautiful autumn scene by unsightly litter marring the landscape.

The photograph also shows that the water level rose so high that it overflowed onto the car paths, intruding on the natural landscapes.  The highlands and the houses built there narrowly avoided the alarming rise in the water level, only needing to make small repairs and perform some obligatory tidying up.  Other homes and families further downstream did not fare so well.  The reports we received were that over 200 homes had been affected, either swamped to the point of being unusable or rendered unsafe to inhabit due to structural damage, and we can’t even begin to imagine the impact to the families mourning the loss of loved ones.  While we tried to enter the area to see if there was any way to help, we were barred from area as the local authorities were assessing damage.  Only those immediately affected were allowed in the area.

At JDS, we respect our environment and work carefully during Japan Photo Tours to make sure that we preserve the beauty of Japan for everyone to enjoy.  We strive to make a positive impact and keep our clients safe.  Now that the storm surges are ebbing, we encourage you to go off the beaten path with us and see what authentic Japan looks like.