Blogs from Kyoto, Japan, Asia - page 83

Kyoto is a very interesting city. It has a strange mix of new and old. For example one one corner there will be a temple over 500 years old and across the street there is a cd/dvd store. Quite interesting. There are many temples here. My favorite one has over 1000 statues of the same god. Plus a complete set of the 28 guardian deities in the buddhist religion. From my understanding it is rare to have a whole set in one place. Sorry no pics of that as they are sacred and are not allowed. It is also the biggest wooden structure in Japan. The temple is more than 800 years old. One thing that I find very interesting is that almost all the gods in the buddhist religion are adopted from hindu gods. They ... read more

Wow, my life has turned insane in the last two weeks. Any vestige of normalcy I might've still been retaining has been sloughed off. For the quick rundown of things, the following things have happened, in roughly chronological order: a) The possibility of Di living with me in Japan for the summer b) Road trip to the beach c) Brain surgery in Japanese d) Art Festival / 24-hour drinking matsuri e) Started dating a LOT of girls f) Constructed a microprocessor in under 48 hours g) Played the lead in a student movie h) Wrote a 1200-character paper in Japanese i) Met a friend from high school j) Ran out of money k) Went to a Kodo (Taiko) Performance l) Was given a tour of a technologically advanced hospital m) Visited a ton more shrines / ... read more

A quick post - I changed my hair! When I first got it, it was bold and terrifyingly loud, but after a day it settled down to do what normal hair is supposed to do. Han came along as photographer and moral support, and he documented the whole affair. Basically, I went in and announced that I wanted a hair cut, I wanted something interesting, and I wanted to color the tips of my hair green. Eventually, however, I backed off all these points and just asked them to do whatever they recommended for my hair. My hair-person chose a style, and then made my hair nothing like it, and then dyed it lime green (but not just the tips). The final result was something akin to David Bowie except green, but it quickly lost its ... read more

I'm taking the Shinkansen(Bullet train) from Tokyo to Kyoto. I've been enjoying train-ride since a very young age. Either the 4 hours-ride to granny's house in China, or the Canadian railway to the east coast. I always press my head against the window with eyes opened in full-size trying to catch anything that the countryside has to offer. But this time, Shinkansen did not satisfy me, yeah it's fast and comfortable, it sure is the product of high-technology, but because it runs so speedy that it doesn't allow you anytime to appreciate the beauty of scenery. The houses, streets, and trees all seem desperately dashing in an opposite direction in a competition for the gold medal. After a while of struggling, I feel headache and just simply pass out on the train. It is so easy ... read more

Sadly, I have come to the end of my stay in Japan, and just as I am starting to pick up a bit of the language! Before leaving for Australia, I had to squeeze in a trip to Nara, only forty kilometres south (one hour by train) from Kyoto. Before Tokyo was the national capital of Japan it was Kyoto, and before that, Nara, which became Japan's first permanent capital in 710. The main purpose of my visit to Nara was to see Todai-ji, which houses Japan's largest statue of the Buddha ("Great Buddha of Nara"). The bronze Buddha stands 16.2m high and weighs 15 tons. The main building wich houses the Buddha is the world's largest wooden structure. Before you reach Todai-ji on the walk from Nara Station, you pass through Nara Park. This, I ... read more