Nobody has logged this one yet
Temples on a grid with mountains on three sides. Brutal in August, worth rearranging an entire year for in November.
Ten thousand gates up a mountain. Empty above the halfway shrine, always.
A temple complex with a Roman-looking aqueduct running straight through it.
Four hundred metres of covered stalls. Touristy at noon, excellent at nine.
I knew it would be busy and it was busier. Also: the blossom really is that good, and sitting under it by the canal with a convenience-store beer at ten at night with half the city doing the same is worth every bit of the crowding.
Extraordinary, and flattened slightly by the number of people who come to see it — which includes me, so I will not complain too loudly. Go at seven in the morning and you get the version everyone describes. At two in the afternoon in April, you do not.
