“Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto, domo…domo. Thank you very much…" once again!

These lyrics always seem to ring in my head whenever I arrive in Japan. It could be just to change planes in Tokyo on our flights to Manila or at the beginning of a stay. While rushing from arrival gate to departure gate with only a few minutes to make our connection my mind singing “domo, domo arigato" or waiting for our luggage, “domo, domo arigato".

In the past years, we made two trips to Japan, the first in November of 2013 to Osaka and Kyoto, and the second in November of 2014 to Tokyo. Both trips were short, only lasting one week plus each stay. As always, one wishes there was more time to explore but hopefully there was enough time to record our time in each city. The book Japan is a photographic documentary of those trips. The following book Japan 2 is our photographic record of a third trip which includes visits again to Tokyo and Kyoto but also a third city Nara.

The original book Japan is somewhat different than most books I have created in the past. The cover was designed in the image of the local print materials using photographs to represent the lines of vertical and horizontal calligraphic copy with emphasis on the colors red and black. If one opens the front and back cover one will see a graphic image that takes the shape of a Kimono. This same cover as well as the title page are used again in this follow up book. The only difference to the cover is the addition of the number 2 in a red square. The interior is divided into three sections, one for each city; Nara, Kyoto and Tokyo. The main difference of this follow up book is that the photographs have been treated like my photographic books in the past. They have been printed one photograph per page centered with no bleeding which is different from the original Japan book.