I’m starting to think that they should call it PhotoSunday… but here is my entry for this weeks PhotoFriday, “Tranquil.” It was taken in Kyoto and is of a sand garden.

If you’re quick, you might also be able to vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Chill.” I’m entry number 182.

Having spent a good couple of hours looking around Kyoto I decided it was time to get out and head to Nara.

Actually it wasn’t nearly so dramatic. Nara is only an hour away on the train and it’s a much smaller, though culturally nearly as important, place. I’d be back in Kyoto in time for sunset at the Silver Pavilion.

Two things that immediately stood out were the long, shady lanes lined with these lanterns. The paths invariably had long lines of school children, some of whom would try their English on me. Even in fragments it was always way better than my Japanese.

Having “done” the big city and the nature, it was time to take in some culture. Kyoto and Nara are the “old” parts of Japan with many of the most beautiful and most famous temples. I didn’t see all of them but I did pretty well! The difference in character between them was fascinating.

Pretty much straight off the Shinkansen I headed to Kiyomizudera. This was, by far, the busiest and most crowded temple of the trip¹. Quite an odd atmosphere for a temple in any case.

For my last day in Nagano Prefecture I had set my sights on Kamikochi, known as one of the most scenic parts of the Japanese Alps. However, the night before I had pretty much given up all home. It had been raining heavily and it was so cloudy that you couldn’t really see the mountains around Matsumoto¹, much less those any higher up.

But the next morning things looked very different. It was a bright day, with a clear blue sky and a slight chill in the air — it was, after all, October. The forecast still wasn’t promising but I thought it was worth the risk.

This weeks PhotoFriday theme, “Dark,” was easier than some of those that they’ve come up with recently! This was taken from the top of Tokyo Tower last month.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Fluffy.” I’m entry number 187.

If you were to make a list of the foods that I won’t eat and then make a diet that consists almost entirely of them, you’d get pretty close to what I thought the Japanese ate.

As it happens, I was wrong. Or at least, there were plenty of options available for someone who won’t eat fish or pickles. But that’s not to say that there weren’t odd or interesting things.

This is already turning into a trip of contrasts. Tokyo was all rush and all people, all the time. Mount Fuji (or at least Lake Kawaguchiko) was quiet, with very few people and little noise except the occasional clank from the bike chain. Matsumoto, a city near the Japanese Alps, strikes a balance somewhere between the two.

The main feature, right in the centre of the city, is Matsumoto Castle. It’s one of the oldest and best preserved castles in Japan.

The Japanese, at least those in the big cities, clearly have a “work hard, play hard” mind-set. I can recount the stereotype of the salaryman carefully arriving at work before and leaving after his boss, or going for drinks with his colleagues at the expense of his family.

Of course I didn’t really see that. While they were working I was sight-seeing.

In the evenings I saw gangs of men in suits in bars. But really the defining factor was that everywhere you looked, no matter the time, there were people asleep. On tube trains. On benches in parks. On seats in exhibition centres.

If there’s one thing that Japan is famous for it’s Mount Fuji¹, which, despite its name, is actually a volcano. That meant that it had to be on the itinerary when on my first trip to Japan.

In order to get the best view I went to Kawaguchiko, which sits between Kawaguchiko lake to its north and Fuji-san to its south. When I first arrived I couldn’t see the mountain as it was covered in mist. I quickly found the lake instead.

Tokyo really is a city of contrasts. Is it the high-tech, bustling, Bladerunner-esque landscape you see on TV? Absolutely. However not all of the districts are quite as frenetic as Ginza or Shibuya. If you look hard there are also back-waters of serenity in some of the temples.

Straight off the plane I decided to lean more towards the quiet side and went to the Imperial Palace. I went straight for the canonical picture of the palace, Nijubashi Bridge.