![\"\u3010Spectacular](\"http:\/\/kokaindex.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Lr-20-1500x1000-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Contents<\/p>
On May 3rd, during Golden Week 2024, I went to the Ibukiyama Star-Gazing Event 2024, which had been announced some time in advance.
\nI first came across this event through a post on Facebook. The attached image showed a mountaintop parking lot at night, with a deep blue sky and the lights of participants glowing softly\u2014an incredibly photogenic scene.
\nThe moment I saw it, I knew I had to go, so I immediately worked it into my schedule.<\/p>\n
To get there, you take the Ibukiyama Driveway. I had checked the location and route many times on Google Maps, but actually driving it was a completely different experience.
\nAt first, it looks like an ordinary mountain road, but as you go on, the views gradually open up and the sense of height increases.<\/p>\n
The truth is, I\u2019m afraid of heights. Even reaching the third floor on an escalator in a shopping mall is enough to make me uncomfortable.
\nSo as the scenery outside the car window became higher and more open along the Ibukiyama Driveway, my body tensed up, and I couldn\u2019t stop feeling uneasy.<\/p>\n
I lost count of how many times I thought, \u201cThis must be the summit already.\u201d Instead of arriving, the obstacles kept disappearing, the view kept expanding, and the sense of height only intensified.
\nMore than once, I found myself blurting out, \u201cWait\u2014there\u2019s still more?\u201d as I drove on.<\/p>\n
The Ibukiyama summit parking lot sits at an elevation of 1,260 meters. As the highest point in the prefecture\u2014and with not a single cloud in the sky that day\u2014the view was unlike anything I had ever seen.
\nAt 1,260 meters, the world below really does feel incredibly far away.<\/p>\n
From a photography perspective, being at this height made everything feel different: the closeness of the transition in the sky\u2019s colors, the sunlight coming in from the side even though it wasn\u2019t yet sunset, and the unique quality of light just after the sun dipped below the horizon.
\nIt was that distinctive color and way the light wraps around the landscape\u2014something I\u2019d only ever seen in advertising photographs.<\/p>\n
Standing there, I couldn\u2019t help but think that it really is worth going to places you don\u2019t normally visit from time to time.<\/p>\n