近畿地方
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since my ef 24-105 lens seems to be broken, i only brought my 6d along with three batteries, the carl zeiss, and the helios. most of the time, however, i had the carl zeiss lens mounted.
18th september:
i arrived in namba, osaka (大阪市) at around 7:20 in the morning after taking a night bus from tokyo. i only managed to get about 4 or 5 hours of very poor sleep, on top of that the air conditioning on the bus was freezing.
at first i walked to namba yasaka-shrein.
then i walked toward the famous canal with all the flashy billboards. on my way there, i snapped two pictures.
seeing this place in the morning when it was so empty was interesting because i feel like most of the time, you only see pictures of the bustling nightlife here.
after that, i took a train to it's terminal and then took a bus for 20 minutes into the mountains. when i arrived, i found myself at a temple that looked like it had been built just for beautiful instagram pictures, haha. (and yes, it was a buddhist temple; i have no idea why there were also torii gates there.)
in the afternoon, i made a quick stop at osaka castle before heading to nara, where i would be staying for the night.
19th september:
my day in nara (奈良市) was probably the most enjoyable. i had made no plans and just wandered into the forest and around the city. nara also felt less overwhelming than the other big cities i had visited before (obviously, nara is the smallest out of tokyo, osaka, and niigata. duh!).
the manyo botanical garden (萬葉植物園) was probably not worth visiting when i was there, as there was a lot of construction happening, which meant that most areas were blocked off. however, these two flowers were beautiful.
in and around kasuga-taisha (春日大社) shrine:
i liked how this old ass tree was growing into the building next to it.
20th september:
okay, why would i travel an hour by train from kyoto and then walk for 20 minutes in 36°c heat with no shade, just to reach the town of toyosato (豊郷町), which has a population of only 7,296?
what a silly question... of course, i traveled there because the original k-on! school is located in toyosato. i think i read somewhere (and i'm too lazy to look it up again, so you just have to take my word for it) that the school was supposed to be demolished, but the town decided to turn the building into a sort of k-on! museum and just build a new school behind it that meets modern earthquake standards.
but before i put pictures of the old school building here, check out these photos i took from the train and of a train! :D
and now the school. i wished i had my 24 to 105 mm lens; it would have made taking pictures from the same angle as in the anime possible. but since that wasn't an option i didn't even bother trying and just took some pictures and enjoyed the atmosphere.
the building itself, aside from some minor changes, looked exactly like it did in the show.
next to the main building was a mercantile shop that seemingly also functioned as the city's office, as there were three people working at desks behind some glass panels. everything looked quite old, though.
and here in this building, you can see seemingly all the officially licensed k-on! merchandise that got ever released!
21th september:
kyoto (京都) is overcrowded, at least in certain areas. i ended up wandering around just like i did in nara, without much planning ahead, and i would notice where something famous was because there were so many people there.
the following two pictures are pretty cool, i think. the first one is so "japan" because there's a vending machine located directly a meter away from the temple. the second one is interesting because of the angle i took the image from; you can see a torii gate, the kyoto tower, and a beautiful old five-story pagoda, the hōkan-ji (法観寺).
wikipedia states that the pagoda was originally built by imperial prince shotoku in the year 589. it had to be rebuilt several times due to fires, and the current version has stood since 1408.
i was a bit surprised that the temple was so empty, as the streets around it were bustling. maybe people thought it was not worth spending 300 yen to get inside; well, good for me.
yasaka kōshin-dō temple (八坂庚申堂) was another temple that looked like it was build for instagram, haha.
in the evening, i went to the railway museum, before heading back to toyko with the shinkansen.
i put my japan summary at the bottom of niigata-ken 2024.