Kyoto: Day 2

On the 21st of every month is the Toji Temple market, held on the grounds of Toji Temple in Kyoto. And luckily for us, the 21st was our second day of the trip. Here's the market entrance:

And here's just a small section of the inside:

There were stalls selling everything: vegetables, clothes, handicrafts, flowers. Sort of like a flea-market, but much cooler (in my opinion). All the stuff made it easy to spend the entire morning there, shopping and just looking around. After lunch, it was on to the Silver Pavilion.


Unfortunately, it was undergoing repairs. It's also not actually silver (as you may have noticed). This is because the guy who built it way back in the day died before the silver could be put on the outside. Anyway, it's in the middle of some very pretty grounds--which were very crowded, this being a major tourist weekend. I'm still not sure whether we walked through it or were herded, but it had a lot of nice autumn leaves and a beautiful view.


After that, we walked the path of philosophy.

It's a narrow path running beside a canal that passes by a lot of temples and shrines. I wish I could say I'm more philosophical or something having walked it, but I guess it's not magical; just pretty.

And the day ended with a rainbow:

Which meant that rain was coming, so we hurried to a bus stop and went back to the hostel.

Kyoto: Day 1

Okay, as you've probably already guessed, I didn't actually get a chance to blog while I was in Kyoto. Our days were so busy, and we did so much walking, that as soon as I got back to the hostel each night I collapsed into bed. Sorry, everyone! But never fear--you'll still get to see what I did. I'm going to recap each day here, complete with a few of the hundreds of photos I took. So without further ado: day one.

I caught the sonic train at 6:58 from my local station and transferred to the shinkansen at the closest major station. This was my first time on the bullet train, and I have to say I was impressed. It was spacious, comfortable, and of course super fast. I arrived at Kyoto Station a little before 11:00.

Kyoto Station is huge. I got all sorts of lost inside.

Then I met Jamie, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and started the trip with a bang. Our first stop: Kiyomizudera.

Out of the bajillion or so temples in Kyoto (that's a rough estimate), Kiyomizudera is one of the big ones, and was appropriately crowded by tourists. And it's pretty easy to see why--the place is gorgeous. And the best part was the view.

While we were there, we saw what at first we thought were actual maiko--geisha-in-training--but it turns out there's a tourist industry in Kyoto where girls pay to get dressed up as geisha and get their pictures taken around town, and these ones had a photographer in tow, so I think that's what they actually were. Still pretty, though:

.Kiyomizudera is in an area with a bunch of other temples, so Jamie and I followed the crowd through little streets lined with tourist shops, eventually ending up at Chion-in. This temple had a special thing going on for autumn--a "Light-up" where they put lights on certain areas of the temple grounds and...well, I'll show rather than tell.






Honestly, the pictures don't do it justice. (It didn't help that my camera's night setting was acting up.) The place was breath-taking, and I was lucky to come to Kyoto in autumn when the event was going on.

And that's all for day 1. Not bad, considering we didn't even get started until the afternoon. Stay tuned for days 2-4!

Kyoto Schedule

My Kyoto trip is this weekend, so I wanted to go over what'll happen blog-wise.

I leave on Friday and return Monday (and this is Japan time, so those days come sooner). Since I'm staying in a hostel, I won't be bringing my laptop because I can't exactly leave it in the room safely. But the hostel has computer internet service, so time-permitting I will try to post some descriptions of what I've been up to. I won't be able to upload pictures, though, so after I return I'll make more posts and just photo-dump.

Also, if you look at my link list on the top right, you'll see a link to Jamie's blog. She's my travel/exploring/adventure! partner for the weekend and might make some cool posts too.

It's going to rain Saturday, but otherwise the weather forecast for the trip is great: sunny skies and temperatures that peak into the sixties. (Have I mentioned how freezing it's been here lately?)

Onward to the weekend!

Some more food

I haven't done a food post in a while, so here's a short one.

This is motsunabe. I ate it at a restaurant, and evidently it's a specialty of my prefecture. Basically, the server brings out a mini-stove for the table and sets out that big bowl of vegetables and meat. Then he/she pours in the soup and turns on the stove. Once it's ready, the people at the table serve themselves. Then, once they've finished all the meat and veggies, the server returns and pours noodles into the bowl. They're cooked until they soak up the sauce and then eaten. (I am making myself hungry here.) The meat was a bit too...chewy for my tastes, but otherwise it was delicious.

Let's see...what other food pictures do I have? Aha.


This is green tea ice cream. It is delicious. That is all.

Shoka Style

Friday's ikebana class was the first time I didn't make a freestyle arrangement. Instead I learned a style called Shoka. The structure of class went a little differently, as Sensei arranged my flowers in Shoka style for me, and after studying them I took the arrangement apart and tried to rebuild it. Here's what it looked like when Sensei did it:

Side view:
And here's what it looked like when I did it back at the apartment:


So, Shoka has three elements: shin, soe, and tai. And I didn't quite understand what they represented when Sensei explained it in Japanese, but a quick internet check tells me they represent heaven, earth, and human beings. In this arrangement, the tallest yellow flower is the shin, the two leaves on the left are the soe, and the purple flowers are the tai. The shorter yellow flower and the leaf on the right are the front and back supports for the shin.

In Shoka, you have to arrange the flowers in a straight line like this:

So that when you look at the arrangement from the front, they hide each other like this:

Which I think is pretty neat.

This coming week, class is canceled. Next week we're scheduled to make Christmas wreathes, but that's the week I'll be in Kyoto, so I'm going to miss out.

But I'll be in Kyoto, which will be awesome.

Some pictures

Today I took my camera up to my little school in the mountains along with batteries that were not dead. I took two pictures as I was walking from school to the bus stop, and then one of my coworkers drove by and offered me a ride to my apartment since she was going in that direction. (She actually might be the principal of the school; I'm not sure.) So I only got two pictures, and they're not very good, but I figure I'll post them anyway, since I haven't put up a lot of new content recently.

The mountains close to the school are actually...pretty small when you get up close. You can see a couple trees here with leaves that have turned red. I'm told this area is really pretty come full-blown autumn.

The steps leading up to the school. Not the best shot, sorry.

I promise I'll take more, better pictures later. Until then~

So I lied

I don't have anything special for you today. I was going to go to a Kagura festival yesterday, but it rained, so I didn't.

Sad.

But I think there might be another festival this weekend, so hopefully I'll get to go to that.

And in more exciting news, a friend and I are going to Kyoto later this month! I haven't really done any serious sight-seeing since getting here, so I'm really looking forward to it. Kyoto is a huge city with lots of history, and touring it should be a lot fun.

I can't wait.