Japan

day four

First of all, I’d like to apologise in advance for the lack of video of the Yamazaki Distillery and the Fushimi Inari Shinto Shrine. I was pretty sure I had recorded something but I couldn’t find the clips. And now I’m uncertain if I deleted them by accident or if I never took any in the first place. In any case, I’m very disappointed with myself. I added photos instead to help tell the story. Hope you enjoy the video.

After an uneventful sunrise, I went for a stroll around the Meriken Park looking for something to photograph. Lucky I took a shot of our hotel, we have no souvenir of our room. I also photographed the Starbucks with the Port Of Kobe Tower just behind it, before heading back to the room. We packed up a little, once Géraldine was up, then headed out for breakfast. It was still too early for places to be open so we wandered around the Meriken Park and the Mosaic before heading back to Starbucks for breakfast. Once our stomachs were full, we finished packing our stuff at the hotel, checked out and caught the hotel bus to Shin-Kobe Station.

At the station, we put our luggages in storage before making our way to the Nunobiki Ropeway. The cable cars took us to the top of the Nunobiki Herb Gardens. Magnificent views, on the way up, of the gardens and Kobe city. A beautiful building at the top with stalls, boutiques, a cafe and lots of flowers. We took the walking path to get back down which gave us the opportunity to check out the Nunobiki Falls - Ontaki and more views of the city. It’s also a beautiful forest walk.

The Yamazaki Distillery was our next visit for the day. It doesn’t look like much from the outside and we didn’t do a tour of the distillery itself but visited the museum and whisky tasted. The museum is very interesting, informative and quite amazing. Even Géraldine, who isn’t a whisky drinker, loved the museum. In the main hall and at the end of the museum, you’ll find a bar arranged in a circle. Here you choose the whiskies you’d like to test from a menu. I was surprised when I saw the Hakushu and Hibiki on the list. My choice was the most expensive whiskies on the menu. My favourite, the 25 year old Hakushu Single Malt Whisky.

We end the day back in Kyoto. We’re here for two nights. On full day. Once we checked in our tiny hotel and relaxed for a few minutes, we went to visit the Fushimi Inari Taisha Shinto Shrine. Didn’t realise there was going to be so many people there. I thought most would visit in the day and not so much at sunset. This place is amazing. Beautiful. I was able to get a few photos with very little to no-one in them. We were too tired to walk the senbontorii (thousand torii) all round the mountain but did a small portion which showed small, medium and large torii. They’re stunning to see. And so are the shrines. Small and large alike.

So, all these places, the Nunobiki Herb Gardens, the Yamazaki Distillery and the Fushimi Inari Taisha should be on your to-do list when visiting Japan. If your a photographer, you’d probably want to visit the herb garden and Shinto shrine at sunset. All worth a visit but give yourself a few hours to, not only, see it all but to really appreciate your surroundings.

That’s it for day four of our little trip in Japan. Day five brings a very busy day of visits. Oyasuminasai my friends.

MUSIC:

Naruto Shippuden - Sinfonia Nro I - Instrumental from Kenny Fernández

Return of the samurai (Hiphop beat) from Soul Mind

Japan Sunset instrumental from Instrumentals4Sale

Kobe, Japan

We don’t eat a huge amount in the morning so paying for a buffet breakfast at the hotel wasn’t worth our while. The problem though, most places open around 8 am. No matter, we went for a stroll around Meriken Park and Kobe Harborland and checked out a huge shop that opened at 7:30 before coming back here, to Starbucks, for a simple breakfast.

This shot was taken a couple of hour beforehand though. Just before I headed back to the room. I liked the reflection of the sun in the front glass panels and having the Port Of Kobe Tower in the frame, gives the viewer a location. A destination.

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28 mm, 1/25th second @ ƒ/11, ISO 100

Kobe, Japan

I got up before sunrise in hopes of a shot of the Kobe Great Bridge all lit up with beautiful light as a backdrop but, unfortunately, neither happened. The bridge lights switched off just as I was setting up and sunrise wasn’t spectacular in any way. There was no interesting compositions either. Port Of Kobe is more beautiful at night than the day.

After the sun had risen, I went for a stroll around the area and saw this Be Kobe sign, meaning Kobe Bay. I realised I didn’t have a photo of our hotel and thought it made for a nice snapshot. Though it was still early morning, there were no interesting shadows, the sky was blue with no interesting cloud structures, it was a pretty bland scene. Thus the black and white conversion. Like I said, just a snapshot of where we stayed.

The Kobe Meriken Park Oriental Hotel is shaped like a ship and is prominent on Port Of Kobe. A luxurious hotel where every room has a view. We had the northern views which looks out towards the city. The best view, in my opinion. We didn’t eat at the hotel but had a nightcap at the View Bar which looks out to the north and west. Apart from a singing pianist, it’s pretty low key and quiet. Perfect to wind down. It was one of two accommodations we splurged on. And it was all for the location and views.

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28 mm, 1/10th second @ ƒ/11, ISO 100

Kobe, Japan

We arrived in Kobe late afternoon and the last bus towards the hotel had already gone. Though we were tired, we decided to walk 20 minutes to get there. A nice walk through the city which made us realise there was a lot to see here. By the time we got to the Meriken Park Oriental Hotel, the sun was just about to disappear below the horizon. What a beautiful surprise when we opened up the curtains to the balcony of our room and saw this gorgeous view. You may have seen one of the photos in a previous blog post.

I quickly setup my gear and started shooting. Single exposures first then once blue hour was over I took a 180º panoramic view. We had arrived just in time to capture these images. So on the left we have Notre Dame Kobe hotel, Port Of Kobe tower, Kobe Maritime Museum, behind that the Hotel Okura Kobe and in front of all that the Meriken Park. You can also see the Bell Of Hortensia and Starbucks right next to it on the bottom right of the image. And not to forget, the cityscape of Kobe in the background.

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28 mm, 5 seconds @ ƒ/11, ISO 100