The stone forest in Kunming

Nishiki Market (Kioto) Irashaaiiiii!!

Nishiki market was the first shotengai I entered in Japan, shotengai is an arcade or roofed street, long and full of shops and restaurants. It was a friend from Kioto who brought me there. Thousand of colours and flavors exploded in my head, dry fish from all kind of shapes and many tiny shops and shopkeepers screaming Irashaiii!!!, Irashaii!!! the japanese word for welcome!, welcome!, as an european my brain became a bit frozen, because our mind in the old continent are not designs to think many things at the same time, we go to the market, or we go to the restaurant, but in Japan everything is mixed up, in the shotengais, restaurants, markets, fisheries, fruits shops and also pharmacies and supermarkets, everything is together, and that It's why enter in a Shotengai is fun, because you never know where you are going to end up. Irasahiii!, from that day I never forgot this magic word that tells you that you are in Japan, irasahaii!. For people who visit Kioto you cannot miss the amazing Nishiki Market, located on a road one block parallel to Shijo street and west to Teramachi street. Irashaiii!! 

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My last rainy day in Changsha, (Hunan)

It was a rainy day, I was dating this pretty Chinese from Changsha capital of Hunan. Two hours from the dark region of Hubei, Changsha people are shorter, and they seem less aggressive than people from Hubeil, and less gloomy. Hunan is misty, due to its closeness to the mountains. The food is spicy, and women like the one I was dating, a little bit spicy. After I said goodbye to her, I decided to explore the city, the train was going to leave in three hours, enough time to find an old temple and draing it. That day the rain didnt stop me to go to the center of this pebbled city and draw the oldest temple, apparently this one. I did the sketch with one hand while the other handled the umbrella, at the same time many Chinese pass through looking at the crazy foreigner drawing the old temple in the middle of the rain. I will never forget that girl, neither Changsha. Capital of Hunan.

Shirahata Temple (Fukushima)

I drew this sketch few days before the big quake, this is a small shrine very close to my house in Japan. After my first visit I knew that I wanted to draw it. It's not a very old building, I think it was built in the 70's, the reason I wanted to draw it was because the beauty of its location. After I finished the sketch I did some research about "Shirahata Shrine", and amazingly I found out that Minamoto no Yorimoto's grave is there, Yorimoto became the first Japan's shogun during the Kamakura period, after the Heian period, and behind his name exists one of the most amazing parts of the History of the feudal Japan, full of heros, traitors and leyends mixed with the real facts. But the true hero of this story was his brother, the young Minamoto no Yoshitsune, who's life was a continuous battle against his enemies to get the control over Japan, and after he defeated all of them he was betrayed and force to commit seppuku by Yorimoto, his older brother, finally Yorimoto got the power and Yoshitsune the glory.