My travels through Japan were the result of an image of mine winning the Sigma Canada Win A Trip To Japan Contest. The announcemet can be found here http://www.sigmacanada.ca/photocontest/, just scroll down to see it. There were over 8000 images entered and the judges chose mine as the winner. The award was a fantastic bus tour from the Osaka and Kyoto area up to Tokyo to be taken during the blossom festival. Being a bus tour, my time there was dictated by the tour so the light in my images isn't ideal. And the tour was very fast paced so not much time was allowed at each destination, a shame, I could have spent so much more time at each location scouting out different angles and compositions. So if you're ever out looking for a new lens to buy, please give Sigma lenses a look, they are outstanding quality, I should know, I have 4 of them :)