Nikon D4 + Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 @ 32mm — ¹/125 sec, f/5, ISO 2500 — map & image data — nearby photos
Shrine Gate at Low Tide
Itsukushima Shrine (厳島神社)

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We popped down to Hiroshima this weekend, and spent the night in Miyajima, near the Itsukushima Shrine. A typhoon is coming, so last night's sunset was not too shabby.

厳島神社の鳥居、昨日の夕方。台風19号の影響で奇麗な夕焼けでした。今日、雨が始まる前に京都に戻りました。

The shrine is notable for being in a tidal plane with a huge difference between high and low tides (the difference yesterday morning was 3.41m — more than 11 feet), so the look and feel of the area changes dramatically throughout the day. It's prettier when the water is up, but it's more interesting when the tide is out because you can walk around out past the gate.

Posts from earlier years from the same area include one about low tide (twice), one about the area at dusk, the gate at night, among others.

On the way home this afternoon, the first drops of Typhoon #19 (“Vongfong”) started hitting as we pulled into Hiroshima Station to switch to a bullet train. The typhoon will hit there in earnest tomorrow, with it forecast to reach Kyoto by the evening.

It's the middle of a three-day weekend, so I thought travel would be relatively calm and uncrowded, but normal reserved seats on every bullet train for hours were sold out. The thought of having to stand for the two-hour trip to Kyoto was unappealing, so we opted for “Green Car” seats, where we could indeed get a reservation to Kyoto. “Green Car” seats are four to a row, instead of six, so it was nicer. It was also much more expensive, of course, but we were lucky to get them; by the time we got to Osaka, the entire train was sold out, and the moment we arrived in Kyoto, a conductor arrived to make sure our seats were empty, presumably for the few lucky folks with confirmed reservations from Kyoto.

Continued here...