On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
This morning, we have some beautiful photos from Japan! ~WaterGirl
Pharniel
Last year the spouse and I managed to check off a bucket list and go to Japan. Captain C’s post reminded me that I should submit photos.
We started in Tokyo, went down to Osaka, then spent a night in Hiroshima, came back to Kyoto, went through mountains into Takayama, hit up Kanazawa and then finished in Tokyo with Tokyo Disney & Disney Sea.
I’m not a Disney Experience kinda person, but Disney Sea was amazing.
We timed the trip to try to get maximum colors. I’m including pictures from the Shoshanzan Engyo-ji temple in Himeji and the train from Nagoya to Takayama. Though most of my photos are from the massive number of temples we saw in Kyoto, I’m sending in photos I managed to take of mountain temples and Gifu & Toyama provinces – which remind me of home, or at least the north parts of home.
Shoshanzan Engyo-ji temple in Himeji, a view from the ‘starting’ point of the hike up the hill.
You take a gondola up the side of the mountain, and from there it’s a brisk 2 KM walk uphill. I managed to smear my lens and lost most of the other photos of the way up, but this gives an idea of how far up you are when you start.
The trail might be long, and up hill, but the views are worth it.
I hope this picture conveys just how close everything is.
Gifu and Takayama have views that feel like the Smokies.
The deep gorge, houses and structures everywhere nestled into the flat spaces you can find, and the spooky mist shrouding the mountains.
Hida Folk Village is great. It’s a preservation space similar to the Greenfield Village – A number of structures were going to be destroyed by hydro projects, so they were moved to this village in order to be preserved and cared for.
The best part is that the structures require fires to be burned inside them, which was good since it was very cool this day.
A shot of the waterfront in Takayama taken on the Yasukawa Dori bridge by the Ashinga Statute on our way to the Morning Market along the river, which is amazing. The entire Shimoninomachi neighborhood is preserved buildings and classic streets, though like parts of Goinin in Kyoto, is heavily touristy.
There’s a morning market on the riverfront, and also at a local temple. The riverfront was more touristy & had more food, the temple market had mostly farmers and fresh fruit – which is good because non-sad apples in Kyoto were 500+ yen (~$5).
Shot of the river from the morning market.
I suggest trying Hida beef – It’s not as internationally known, but still amazing. There are various stalls with beef croquets, beef sticks, sweets, and of course takoyaki – though I didn’t get my camera out in time to film the stall doing a demo on how they roll them for the crowd.
raven
sweet
MazeDancer
Excellent photos. Never seen that part of Japan before.
There go two miscreants
For whatever reason, I didn’t think of Japan as a place with autumn colors, so it was nice to be corrected! Very peaceful scenes here compared with the bustle and lights in their cities.
cope
These are lovely pictures of a Japan that does not usually come to mind. At least my mind, anyway. It’s nice to see different facets of places or things about which we have incomplete, preconceived ideas. Thank you.
randy khan
Nice.
sdhays
My wife and I traveled in Japan a couple years ago and it looks like we hit a lot of the same places you did. Good memories.
JanieM
Beautiful, and as others have said, not the stereotypical images of Japan I carry around in my head. Pics 4 and 5 particularly make me want to go there. It looks so peaceful. The anti-Tokyo?
Mom Says I*m Handsome
Lovely photos. I spent a lot of time visiting Japan on business in the ’90’s, and the view out my usual hotel room in remote Toyama prefecture looks a lot like pic 3. Everywhere you look you’ll find massive civil engineering works (retaining walls, water drainage and the like) that are so well integrated into the landscape that they seem like they’ve just sprouted out of the landscape.
The Netflix show “Giri/Haji” has some beautiful rural scenery, particularly in the later episodes where the ladies drive to the remote safe house. I think Japan’s natural scenery rivals that of New Zealand — although, tbh, beauty is all around us if you’re open to seeing it.
11 days to a new future, comrades…
Captain C
These are lovely photos. The colors remind me of New England or Upstate NY during the fall. It sounds like you had an amazing trip.
J R in WV
ETA to keep it simple.
These pictures are great, inspiring us to keep that bucket list in mind for future exploration. Of course, right now we’re spending all our energy just staying alive to vote against turd-wallop.
Best wishes to everyone!! and thanks for the lovely pictures!
dm
Lovely pictures. I hope you’ll share your photos of Kyoto shrines and temples, too.
Pharniel
@MazeDancer:
Thanks. My wife made the decision to head up into the Takayama countryside. I was thinking Gifu based on Ghram Stark’s travel blog.
Funny enough there were high school kids doing presentations to tourists on why Gifu was cool and were shocked I knew about the various things to do.
@sdhays:
One of my friends lived in Japan for over a decade. I did hit her up for ideas. I’m guessing this is a “great minds” idea.
@JanieM:
Takayama is very much super small. Fun fact, we walked past the place we were having lunch at because we though we had very far to go because we were used to the Kyoto/Tokyo scale.
@dm:
I will absolutely get the Kyoto photos out of the vault.
We went to a few temples at night, so we have a nice contrast.
For those asking about leafing in Japan – Kyoto is so known for it’s fall foliage that the train station has a ‘fall colors’ report that details the color state of various places in town to help you know where to go.