The Keihin industrial zone stretches along Kawasaki's waterfront and into neighbouring areas of Yokohama, forming one of the densest concentrations of heavy industry in Asia. By day it is a working landscape of storage tanks, cooling towers, conveyor belts, and pipelines. At night, when the facilities light up in orange and white against the dark bay, it becomes something else: an inadvertent spectacle that has attracted photographers and tourists in sufficient numbers that dedicated factory night-view cruise boats now operate from nearby piers.
Several companies run evening bay cruises (yakō kōjō meguiri) from April through October, typically 90 minutes on the water with commentary on what each facility produces. For land-based viewing, the reclaimed island area of Ukishima-cho has parking areas and open ground that photographers use. The zone is best seen from late October through March, when the air is clear. This is industrial Japan at its most honest — vast, functional, and unexpectedly photogenic.