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maybe this year i'll make my return to japan for vacation. i tried to spend my paid vacation time there each year, prior to the pandemic. i'm not the type who'd try to cram visiting a bunch of tourist locations in the span of a week or two-- a couple of days in tokyo, another couple in kyoto, then osaka, etc. i'd find such an itinerary to be way too overwhelming and it leaves no time for me to actually relax. if i go this year, it'll probably be in the summer.
i book a hotel in akihabara for my entire two weeks. then i'll stem out from there; checking out shops in the surrounding wards, taking some pics, chowing down on bowl of abura soba every other night.
some of these districts are nice at night. akiba is not. the place shuts down at ~10pm, learned that early on the first time i was there. all the stores are closed and all their signs are powered down, pretty unrecognizable from what it was just an hour or two before. it's rather amusing and ironic being that akiba has "electric town" as it's nickname. i think there's one or two bars/clubs on the outskirts, but that's about it for nightlife.
shibuya at night is nice, though. most of the district, if not all, is very photogenic. the only issue one may have is when photographing long exposures. finding space to setup a tripod can be a challenge, as you want a decent perspective, but you also don't want to impede the large amount of foot traffic. apart from that, general street photography is nice. lots of dispersed lighting from all the signs makes shooting street at night a breeze.
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bix
