日光

Five Storey Pagoda │ GF1 + Lumix 7-14mm F4.0 │ 7mm F5.0 1/40s ISO100I spent the last two days in the ancient imperial capital of Nikko. These days there aren't any emperors to be found, only a lot of tourists. I was glad to be suffering from jet lag as it let me get up at the crack of dawn (4:45 around here) without any negative side effects. By the time the tour buses started spitting out their hordes, I had already had two hours to enjoy the temples and shrines in the tranquillity of the early morning.

I hope those characters in the title are correct. Sometimes the only way to be able to figure out which way to go is by matching characters on a map to those on the sign. Fortunately, the characters on tourism maps usually appear beside an image of the thing I'm looking for, otherwise I'd be in trouble. Quite a lot of signs have small English text underneath the Japanese, but surprisingly this was seldom the case within the World Heritage Site.

Garden Gate │ GF1 + Leica 45mm │ 45mm F3.2 1/320s ISO100

Tasteful Souvenirs │ GF1 + Lumix 20mm F1.7 │ 20mm F2.8 1/60s ISO125

Ramp │ GF1 + Leica 45mm │ 45mm F4.0 1/40s ISO100