There were a lot of pigeons behind Kokura Castle. There were some colorful pigeons and they congregated there probably because there were a couple of people feeding them. It was a good opportunity to take out my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM telephoto zoom for some shots. I am quite pleased with them, I hope you will like them too.

Kokura (??, Kokura^?) is an ancient castle town and the center of Kitaky?sh?, Japan, guarding, via its suburb Moji, the Straits of Shimonoseki between Honsh? and Ky?sh?. Kokura is also the name of the penultimate station on the southbound Sanyo Shinkansen line, which is owned by JR Ky?sh? and an important part of the company’s rail network. Ferries connect Kokura with Matsuyama on Shikoku, and Busan in Korea.

Kokura had been the primary target of the nuclear weapon “Fat Man” on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by clouds and smoke from an earlier fire-bombing of the neighboring city of Yahata. Since the mission commander Major Charles Sweeney had orders to only drop the bomb if the target was sighted, he ordered the mission to proceed to the secondary target of Nagasaki, where the weapon was dropped. Hence the Japanese talk of the “luck of Kokura”. Kokura had been the secondary target of the “Little Boy” bomb, which had been dropped three days earlier by the Click to continue reading "Kokura ??"

Written by Roland Lim on June 24th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on 40D and Camera Review and Cano EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM and Canon-EOS-40D and EF-S and EOS 40D and General and Kokura and Kokura Castle and Kyushu and Photos and Travel and camera and japan and photo and photography and 小倉 and 小倉城.