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Published: February 4th 2008
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kyoto
the first building i saw coming out of the train station so i FINALLY have internet access in my room...which means MORE PICTURES!
these pictures are from the trip we took to kyoto on saturday (even though i was still exhausted from osaka the night before). me, leilani, anton, bas, and leilani's roommate olga all rode our bikes to makino station, which is just down the road. we left them there and got on the the train to kyoto. and we didn't get lost this time!! we just followed olga. she knew what she was doing cause she had been here last semester too. so it was nice not being lost and confused for once! when we arrived in kyoto we met 2 of olga's japanese friends, yuka and haru. they were really nice and had agreed to show us around kyoto for the day. we were in the gion region, which is where all the geisha live. it was so pretty! if you've ever read "memoirs of a geisha" you know what i mean...
first we went to a shrine (i can't remember what they said its name was!). when we first got in we all had to wash our hands at some fountain using wooden ladles. it was
street
street in kyoto interesting. then we went on to look around at the rest of the shrine. unfortunately i really had no idea what was going on there. me and leilani just kinda walked around taking pictures of things we thought were pretty! lol.
oh and the strangest thing happened to me while i was posing for a picture! this japanese guy walks up to me and is like "shashin!" i just kind of smiled cause i didn't know what was going on. then all of a sudden he pulls out his camera phone and takes a picture of me. me and leilani just looked at each other thinking "did that really just happen?" then i remember that "shashin" means photo in japanese!
but anyway, we walk around more and i think actually left the shrine. but we saw this stand that sold green tea ice cream so we had to try them! they were soooo oiishi (delicious). but we were freezing afterwards cause it was already really cold outside. well we head back to the shrine and meet up with the others. there's some performance going on, which we are told is to celebrate the end of winter. after leaving
starbucks
starbucks is everywhere apparently... the shrine, we then walk along the residential streets of gion, which were absolutely amazing, towards kiyomizu temple. after about 15 minutes we arrive at kyomizu.
needless to say, kiyomizu temple was beautiful!! from the temple there were amazing views of the entire city of kyoto. so we walked through the entire temple area. i wish i had take a picture of them, but some of the rocks along the way had little aprons on them. yuka and haru said they were supposed to be clothes, which i assume is to keep the rocks warm in the winter!
well after we left kiyomizu temple, we go back to the main city street and go to a little restaurant to eat lunch. the restaurant served soba and udon meals, and i ordered the tori nanba, which had chicken and green onion with udon noodles. it was really good!! we all had fun practicing our slurping. slurping in japan is actually a sign of appreciation, showing that you like the food. i couldn't slurp very loud, and it was messy to slurp too. but i'll keep practicing...
well after lunch olga, anton, and bas left to go back home.
shrine
entrance to the shrine but me and leilani wanted to shop (surprised?) so we go with yuka and haru. they take us to this amazing 5-story mall with tons of different brands inside. i bought a cute spring jacket there. then we went to another little strip shopping area like shinsaibashi and looked around all the little stores there. i found the cutest spring/summer bag at one of the shops. i can't wait to use it!! after we were done shopping me and leilani took the train back to makino station to pick up our bikes. well we got on our bikes and realized we don't know how to get back to the seminar house. so we were basically lost in a dark alley in japan at night...and it was raining. so we're soaking wet while riding on our bikes! but we just rode around for awhile and eventually found a tiny road leading to the main road. it was like a foot wide and was on a steep hill in some little meadow. but we made it back to the main road and found the seminar house! it was such a fun day and night! riding around in the rain lost in japan
group pic
anton, haru, leilani, me, yuka, and bas was definitely an interesting experience!
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Shin
non-member comment
I got the first comment!
so it seems like you are having lots of fun there in japan!! i am glad you enjoy being in japan. and i like looking your blog since i can see some places i have never been. so please keep uploading! anyways, i hope you keep enjoying japanese culture and people!