Down from the hills of Ohara and I decide to end the day visiting the two Honganji temples which are situated just north of Kyoto station.

My first stop was Higashi Honganji where one of the halls was undergoing substantial renovation. Renovate a temple in Thailand and you throw up some wooden scaffolding; but in Japan such efforts dictate the enveloping of the building inside a massive warehouse:

My original, incomplete Kyoto planning completely ignored locations outside the city, on the grounds I would not be able to reach them with any degree of ease. But Ian, the owner of my B&B, convinced me otherwise; which is why I found myself on a bus to the Ohara region shortly after 0800. The journey would take about forty five minutes and I looked forward to settling down with my book on my Kindle app on my phone. But I reckoned without the enthusiasm of the citizens of my host country who also fancied an outing, so I found myself stuffed in a bus and standing for the duration of the trip. Not so bad as it sounds, because the Japanese have a knack of not invading your personal space, however crowded things become (or maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t shaved for three days and was therefore looking even more scruffy than usual, and I was - and remain - a Caucasian).

Disgorged into the very cool morning air and we started the climb to Sanzen-in temple, the main attraction. On the way there were outlets offering sustenance and souvenirs:

Another day, another bunch of old buildings in Kyoto. The main target for the day was Tokufuji, renowned for its Autumn foliage. To get there I took a bus to the centre, and then a train to a nearby station.

She who must be obeyed and I had taken trains to nearby stations during our previous visit to Kyoto, only to become hopelessly lost trying to find the attraction which was apparently in the vicinity, but wasn’t after we had gone round in circles for an hour or so. No such problem during this visit, with a constant stream of visitors going to and from the main sites.

So the train was full of happy Japanese, and me (I was happy, but not Japanese). We all disembarked at the helpfully named Tofukuji station, to be met by men with yellow jackets and yellow signboards which they were waving in both directions down the station. I cleverly chose the exit with the fewest number of people, and I was feeling pretty pleased with my decision as I quickly inserted my ticket into the machine whilst reading a sign which ended with a warning in English: “No Exit”. Shit.

What I could do from here is buy another ticket to go somewhere else. But then another option presented itself in the rather attractive shape of railway employee who gave me a pitying smile and a small piece of card which would allow me to depart from whence I came. I gave her the obligatory bow or three and hurried out the main exit to join up with my fellow passengers on the walk to Tofukuji.

Second day in Kyoto and I decide to cover an area in the south west of the city. I had already realised that I am going to gather more than enough autumn photos during the course of my stay, and resolved to spend more time enjoying the experience of being in this fine city and less time snapping shots of everything. What followed was a five and a half hour stroll through parks and temples; a very pleasant way to spend a day.

I first made my way by bus and feet to the Yasaka shrine; where I met a bunch of Japan’s finest old ladies, also out for a walk in the cold sunshine. I gesticulated with my camera and they assumed I wanted them to take my photo with it. No, I wanted to take a photo of them! This went down very well and hats were smoothed, smiles arranged and we parted as friends with a lot of bowing all round:

While people in Bangkok started killing each other in order to decide which flavour of politician would be next in line to steal the wealth of the nation, in Pattaya we had rather more benign bangs thanks to the International Fireworks Festival:

Among my list of many outstandings is a plan to write a review on my M43 site, covering the tracking focus ability of the E-M1.

Micro Four Thirds cameras have always been quick and accurate to focus on static objects, but completely rubbish at tracking focus on moving objects. The E-M1 starts to change that by including PDAF receptors on the sensor. This has mainly been done to allow a reasonable focus speed for Four Thirds lenses (distinct from Micro Four Thirds); but also allows a degree of tracking to be done with any lens.

The conclusion of my review will be that it works. My conclusion will also be that it doesn’t work; and that it both works and doesn’t works during a single burst of images. In short, it’s not that great and certainly not up to the standard of my previous Canon 1D and could not be used for commercial action photography. But, if all you wanted was a few shots from an action oriented event you attended; well then it will serve you well enough.

To test that claim I will be taking it to shoot things that are moving whenever I can, and today I went to the Pattaya Watersports Festival and shot some racing boats. The conditions were appalling for photography, shooting straight into the sun with light bouncing off the sea into the lens. Even so, I captured plenty of in-focus shots; here are a few of them:

Ringed by mountains, Kyoto loses sunlight early in the day in November, with photography involving sunlight being unlikely after 1500 and impossible after 1600; and by 1700 it is dark. On my first day, bereft of sleep, somewhat chilled and in need of a hot shower, hot sake and a good lie down; I was quite happy to abandon my day early. So my final stop was Nanzen-ji temple. I took a few photos in the gathering gloom before scuttling back to my room and some rest.