Over the years I've posted many sunsets from the Shogunzuka Overlook (将軍塚) in eastern Kyoto, from spectacular to quiet but nice to the most common: downright bland. It's been a source of occasionally dynamic views for a long time, but the practical reality is that for every one time I show something from up there, I've visited and returned empty-handed many times.

Overall, the median experience is, basically, a waste of time.

I tend to keep track of the sky's potential for a nice sunset throughout the day, all while mentally juggling my schedule to see whether a trip up to the overlook for the sunset is even possible. I've properly predicted most of the great sunsets I've seen, but that's only because my ever-optimistic view almost always “predicts” a great sunset... it's just that I'm wrong 99% of the time.^*

In the face of such predictable failure, some might consider my repeated visits to be “persistence” or “perseverance”, but I think it's more “hope”. Some day it'll pay off.

On a visit up there a week or so ago, the first views as I approached from the parking lot were promising, as seen above.

The weather was dynamic, with occasional wisps of rain being swept in on the wind from a cloudburst sweeping across northern Kyoto, and this gave us a weak rainbow for a moment.

The two guys in the lower left are trying to take the classic “sun held between forefinger and thumb” shot. The head of my shadow at right is the center of the rainbow's arc.

Having come to see the sunset (which is, by definition, in the opposite direction of any rainbow), no one else seemed to notice the rainbow, so I mentioned it...

As for the sunset, it was okay, but mostly petered out. A few HDRish views...

Oh well, maybe next time, I hope.

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*	Engineers in the early days at Yahoo! will recognize this as Zod's foosball technique... predict a winning shot every time, so that the one time a month he actually does win, he could “told you so” gloat about it for the rest of the month. 🙂