{Inter} Cultural Japan

The Night View of Seto is a site with stunning panorama pictures of famous night views. The maker, Mr. M. Murakami, is not someone with a “night view mania” as he insists - he just likes to take pictures, put them together in panorama views, and so share night views with people who can’t go there themselves. The site has outgrown the Seto Inland Sea, and night views now range from Nagasaki to Tokyo. It is a fantastic indepth site about one specific topic, night view panoramas.

I had to leave Firefox and fire up Internet Explorer to enjoy the automatic scrolling features of the site - in the case of smaller pictures from left to right, but larger ones scroll round a full 360 degrees! It was worth it!

[Screenshot from The Night View of Seto showing the scrolling Rainbow Bridge, Tokyo]

The bilingual site contains well over a hundred night views, most of them in several sizes, besides essays about the technique of taking these pictures and pasting them together.

The best three “million dollar” night views in Japan are traditionally Nagasaki, Kobe and Hakodate. The site contains several views of Kobe by night - my favorite one is this one of Kobe Port, although the view from Mayasan is not to be neglected as well.

Of course, Nagasaki seen from Mt Inasa also looks great. And what about Shimonoseki and the Kaimon Straights seen from the Yume Tower? Osaka from the Umeda Sky Building? Kyoto from Mt Daimonji? Nara from Mt Wakakusa? Takamatsu from Yashima? Kumamoto seen from its impressive castle (this one is a day view, for a change)?

As you see, I just can’t stopping clicking on these fascinating night views. And I haven’t even told you which one is my favorite: the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo seen from Odaiba!