NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO4500)
My first vacation in Japan but I have been here many times before. Time to see something that I haven’t seen before: Kyoto!
When I traveled to Japan for business the focus was on Tokyo and Osaka. I also visited Sendai, Nagoya, Okayama and Hiroshima but I never saw Kyoto. Today finally was the day.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO12800)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO16000)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO1600)
This is our first vacation without a car. Initially we were a little nervous but this is not the USA or Canada or Ireland. This is a densely populated country with the best public transport in the world. So unless you explore the unknown parts of Japan you definitely need no car.
Our hotel was located just beside Osaka station so it was only a couple of steps to get to a local train that would bring us directly to Kyoto. We could have also taken the Shinkansen but the local train was more convenient. No need to change trains and its station in Kyoto was much closer to the temples we plan to visit than Kyoto station.
Within a couple of steps it was clear that Kyoto is different. Beautiful old houses and peaceful narrow streets. The weather was excellent. It was a warm, cloudless late summer day in November that felt like early September at home expect that everything else is different.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/4, 1/250 sec, ISO200)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO720)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO2500)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
We wandered through alleyways and I was surprised how relaxed and peaceful it was. I thought Kyoto suffers from over tourism. Of course later we learned that it was the peace before the storm. It simply was too early for the masses of tourists and the locals were already at work. That’s why we walked almost empty streets before we visited our first temple.
What is still always striking is how clean everything is in Japan. I always thought that Austria is tidy and clean but Japan is on another level. Usually I only recognise if a place is filthy but in Japan the streets look like they come straight out of a washing machine. Of course there is no litter or grafiti but there is more. Everything is perfectly maintained, nothing is broken. One of my first blog post about Japan had the title “No one speaks English but nothing is broken”. In reference of the lyrics in Tom Taubert’s Blues from Tom Waits.
I think the order, the level of safety and the cleanliness is striking no matter from which part of the world you are going to visit. Japan simply is on a different level.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO200)
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/1000 sec, ISO200)
Speaking of cleanliness and order. Of course it’s the people but there are also thousands of helpers dressed in uniforms that maintain this order. Like the guy in the picture above those are often retirees in their 70s or even 80s. Everyone plays an important role that Japan works like a well oiled machine. I have travelled a lot but I never experienced anything like that.
All images in this blog post are taken with a 20mm lens so I was really close when I took the image above. But the Nikon Z8 has a party trick: no shutter! It can shoot totally silent. In most cases the noise level on the street is high enough that you don’t have to worry about shutter noise but sometimes it really helps to have a silent camera.
On our way to the famous Kyomizu-dera temple we passed by this little temple that we haven’t even planned to visit. It was the highlight of the day. More about it soon.
NIKON Z 8 (20mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO560)