Japan Trip October 2024
(Preface: This is more a travel blog including pictures of our trip… for purely landscape photos in bigger resolution format please go the Japan 2024 gallery…)
Finally… back to Japan – my „second home“ … this time after a long (corona) break again for a Ki-Aikido Worldcamp (in Osaka). But first – 8 days of beautiful Japan, its nature, landscapes, town and small villages, and its people. As you can see from the first picture, I didn’t travel alone but with two of my Aikido students. And we had a wonderful time! Sophia, being a videographer and photographer, was taking lots of photographs herself, but of course with a completely different way of seeing (for her it was the 5th visit to Japan, including a longer stay of half a year)… Andrea, who is a (mostly painting) artist and teashop owner, came to Japan for the first time – and she was having a blast! She looked (and most probably felt) like Alice in Wonderland … First, we went to the beautiful mountain town of Takayama:
With a one-day visit to the mountain village of Shirakawago, where we had the great fortune to witness the autumn matsuri (festival) at the local shrine:
On day 4, we drove (with our little rental mini-mini van) deeper into the Japanese Alps for two days of hiking into the Kamikochi area. For that you have to leave your car at one of the big parking lots just outside the areas‘ gates, and travel inside by bus service. We got of at Taishoike bus stop, to hike the rest of the way (11km) up the Azusa River valley.. on the way we saw Taishiro pond and marsh, the famous Kappa-bashi bridge, and beautiful woods alongside the river until we reached our Mountain lodge Tokusawa-en, which we had pre-booked many months before (autumn in Kamikochi is high-season, places book out quickly and are rather pricey, but it includes Japanese breakfast and dinner, and onsen)…
On the third day we hiked back, this time mostly on the other side of the river, to see the to-of-this-world Myojin pond, as well as a landscape that was more different on this side of the river than one might expect…
After taking the bus back out to the parking lot in the afternoon, we still had a 2-hours drive ahead of us though the Alps to its southern parts in the Kiso mountain area, to the old Nakasendo road town of Magome, where we had booked a beautiful old ryokan, including dinner of course like it used to be in the old days… (everything closes at 5 pm including all places for eating.. ) Whoever is still in town after dark (tourists I mean) is staying in a ryokan, and there you get dinner 🙂 Next day we hiked the old Nakasendo road, at least a small portion of it, which leads you over a mountain pass down to the next town of Tsumago. From there we took the (last) bus back to Magome..
On day 8 we had to leave the Japanese Alps already and made a stop-over at the biwa lake town of Hikone, where we visited its castle and garden… despite rather wet weather conditions… Then driving back to Osaka, to drop off our rental car… for 4 days in the big city… (where we also had our 3-day Ki-Aikido Worldcamp, and were meeting many old and new friends)
After the camp we still had 4 days left… so we went to the old capital: Kyoto (joined by my student Peter for one day)..
Kyoto is worth a visit anytime, but certainly in autumn! Here are some photos from Arashiyama, with Tenryu-ji temple, the famous bamboo forest, and a beautiful Katsura river valley/gorge. One of my favorite shrines in Kyoto is Kitano Tenman-gu (where you also find a great „flea“market in front of the south gate every 4th Friday of the month, if you arrive before 5pm, that is 😉
The last day in Kyoto was devoted fully to a trip to the old town of Nara (which was the capital of Japan until 1240 years ago before Kyoto became the capital).
What a trip! Knowing I would have no time for wildlife photography, I left my Olympus 100-400 at home, and took only the minimal gear of the OM-1 with 12-100 almost glued to it, only occasionally switched for the Pana-Leica 8-18. Plus the Kase magnetic filters, of course – of which I really only needed the polarizer, the ND filters are nowadays of no much use for me, since the OM-1 has built-in electronic ND up to ND64, which is, together with the 7+ stops of image stabilization, perfect even for waterfall shots handheld. The lightweight travel tripod I took along (thankfully my Fotopro X-Aircross 3 Carbon weighs in under 1 kg) I used only once – for the night photos in Magome town. Reminder to self: Next time only OM-1, 12-100, Polarizer, spare batteries, charger, not even sure I need the 8-18 ? Maybe I will switch that soon for the smaller and even lighter new Loawa 6mm F2 MFT… ? „All“ of that fits beautifully into the bottom compartment of my Mindshift Rotation 22L Rucksack. The slide-around feature works perfectly for quick access to all your stuff, without taking off the backpack! And the top compartment is big enough for some clothing for a 2-day hike to a mountain hut… what more could I ask for?
Sooo… when will I be back in Japan? I don’t know. I will go back, probably many more times, but I would like to visit in some other seasons, too. Winter would be great, maybe in Hokkaido, we have yet to see cherry blossoms in Japan… and Kyushu is also still on my list…
