Entry · DAC → NRT
Japan
Spring, between two rains
28 Mar — 10 Apr 202614 days7 places
Neon crossings, ten thousand vermilion gates and a castle floating above the cherry trees. Fourteen days moving south along the Tōkaidō line — from Tokyo's sleepless intersections to Kyoto's quiet mountains and the loud, glowing canals of Osaka.
7 places across Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka
Shibuya Crossing
Stood on the station footbridge until the lights changed four times. Every crossing felt choreographed.
Senso-ji Temple
Incense smoke before opening hours, the Kaminarimon lantern still wet from the night rain.
Tokyo Skytree
The whole city reduced to a circuit board. Fuji appeared for about six minutes.
Fushimi Inari Taisha
Climbed until the gates thinned out and the only sound was crows and my own breathing.
Arashiyama Bamboo Grove
Arrived at 6:40. The bamboo creaks like an old ship when the wind moves through it.
Dotonbori
Takoyaki burns, reflections of signboards dancing on the canal, nobody in a hurry to sleep.
Osaka Castle
Cherry petals in the moat, school groups in lines, the keep glowing white against a hazy sky.
Arriving into the noise
Narita Express, a 7-Eleven egg sandwich, and then Shibuya at rush hour. I'd seen the crossing a hundred times on screens, but nothing prepares you for how quiet it is — thousands of people and almost no one talking.
Thousands of people and almost no one talking.
Ten thousand gates
The lower gates at Fushimi Inari are a corridor of tourists. Halfway up the mountain they become something else: a slow orange tunnel with moss on the stone foxes and the city disappearing behind you.
Petals in the moat
Osaka felt like the loud younger sibling of Kyoto. But in the morning at the castle, with petals collecting on the water, it was the calmest place of the whole trip.
The calmest place of the whole trip.