Today, I planned to travel outside Tokyo only to realize this morning that--despite eating copious amounts of dark chocolate and ingesting too much caffeine--I'm kind of...well...exhausted. Russian superwoman don't like to acknowledge their weaknesses in public!

But the latter ended up working out to my advantage: I decided to undertake something tried and tested: Ueno, where I haven't been since 2009. Actually, that is where I stayed during my first visit to Japan.

So, you know: memories.

The Ueno Park turned out to be a great idea for two reasons. First, I got to capture all kinds of images of crows and ravens in a variety of styles, from close-up portraits to painterly minimalism. (There seems to be less of a size difference between the two as compared to a North America, so sometimes it is hard to tell them apart!) Second: the Moon.

Actually, I forgot about the Moon completely (!), but I noticed that it was waxing and quite visible in suburban, "sky-scraperless" Saitama on Wednesday night. Naturally, I couldn't help myself, especially in light of K-3's higher resolution as compared to the K-7. I even "Googled" the sunset and moonset times for Tokyo!

And, what can I say, it was glorious. Total darkness. Serenading crows. Ueno Park trees resembling Tim Burton's aesthetic. And a perfect waxing crescent tilted differently as compared to what I'm used to seeing in Montana.

Totally worth freezing my fingers!

Thank you, Ueno. Thank you, Moon.

P.S. In the meantime, all I have is mobile daytime images.