Just before diving into the inevitable Ehime-visit posts, I thought I'd share with you one of the ways with which I keep my self occupied when I'm in a quite house.

Thanks to the well-stocked Tosu city library, I was able to get my hands on a book that detailed the reconstruction of the 5th & 6th floors of Azuchi castle for the purposes of displaying it at the 1992 Seville Expo.

For those not familiar with the partial reconstruction, the 6th floor is a 4-sided room covered with gold-leaf and the floor below it has eight sides & is the reddest thing you ever saw. it remains on display in Azuchi. Just don't go on a Monday like I did! It ain't open.

The whole thing is a work of art, but within the 5th floor is the screen & sliding doors pictured below. A detail of one of the doors is sitting to the right. But as if you hadn't already noticed.

So getting back to my time-spending ways, after scanning in the images, I clumsily added the frames, some shadow & the handles. I then messed around with layers to add the text and the background with the Oda clan heraldry. I used a program called GIMP, an open source Paintshop alternative.

I doubt the resulting image is going to impress anyone but I do enjoy the learning process. I never really knew about Japanese castles, taking photos, making websites, blogging or making videos either, I just gave it a go. Gotta start somewhere, hey? (That's a rhetorical question.)