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Published: April 19th 2008
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Hello again to everyone! It’s time once more for an update!
As many of you know, Aimee, Lauren, Liz and I all went on a trip during the last week of March to Kyoto. Minus a few slips, I had my camera with me a lot of the time, so I have LOTS to show. I’ll mostly leave the pictures to explain things, but I’ll also give a recap as well, to give the pictures a little more clarity. HOWEVER... Due to the fact that I took exactly 999 pictures on this trip, I've recently decided to split the trip up into several separate posts, so as to make the picture uploading easier for me and probably anyone else reading this. And I won't be posting every single picture. Probably just the best of the bunch. If you want to see all of them, you can most likely go through the proper channels when I come home :P. Without further ado, the beginnings of the trip!
March 22, Saturday We hopped onto the night bus that evening. Not a picture for it, and I don’t think it needs any. We all had very little sleep and a bit
Higashi Honganji 2
Lady feeding pigeons of a jostled ride. I played a little Zelda and listened to music to try and pass the time. By 6am the next day, we were at Kyoto Station.
March 23, Sunday Our first real day in Kyoto, and our first sign of welcome was a run-in with a pervert who rode the night bus with us… The guy kept talking to us, and when nobody could shake him, I ran up to the guy working the ticket stiles and told him the problem in my worst Japanese. He got the point though, and he was kind enough to relieve us of our little problem… Nobody was hurt, but we were all a little shaken by the experience. We hopped onto the train for the house we were staying at, and we got to watch the sunrise through the mountains.
All thanks to Aimee’s tutoring jobs, we were able to stay almost our entire trip in Kyoto with one of the kindest ladies I’ve ever met. Hideko-san is the grandmother of a little boy Aimee tutors each week. The boy’s mother hooked us up when she heard we were going to Kyoto. Hideko-san drove us to her
Fujinomori
Where Hideko-san lives (this is the start of day 2, by the way) house from the station nearest to it (which was only about three stops away from Kyoto Station, actually), made us some tea, and we all introduced ourselves. Lauren was the best and brightest of us all, language-wise, which made the conversation easier. Once again, I found myself grateful for her studiousness. In an ironic twist, Hideko, being Catholic and it being Easter, was going to church that morning, and the four of us were headed to temples for the day. She showed us to our rooms (which ended up being a lot bigger and better than I had psyched myself up for), and we freshened up a little before getting a start on the day.
Hideko drove us to the station near her house, and from there, we took the train back into main Kyoto. Our first stop was a few minutes walk past the station, Higashi Honganji Temple. Lots of pigeons, which we watched for a while until lunch. -I wasn’t awake enough to feel like bringing my camera, so the ones from Honganji that I have on here are courtesy of Aimee. We were all pretty wiped out from the bus ride and all the.. excitement of
the morning. We walked around and found a little restaurant to eat at, but my stomach was a little fluttery, so I ended up falling asleep at the table for about 20 minutes instead. It did provide a little pick-me-up for the rest of the day, but I felt sort of silly for falling asleep in the restaurant. Ah well.
After lunch, we all went back to Higashi Honganji and relaxed for a while. Watched the pigeons some more, explored more of the temple. Then we went back to the station and explored the mall inside it. Kyoto station, for the record, is HUGE. I think there were about 12 floors to the mall inside it. All 12 of them were posh. Stuff I wouldn’t feel comfortable buying even if I could afford it. We went up several escalators to get to the top, which lead out onto the roof and a fantastic view of Kyoto. A lot of parents had brought their kids up to the roof to play for some reason, and it was great fun to watch handfuls of toddlers run around and chase each other. I fell asleep a second time, in my own lap.
Bike Pup
Near Kyoto Station I figure I was allowed. First day and all. We headed back after that to Hideko’s house. She had planned a welcoming party for us and had invited a few Japanese lady friends. -I was too tired to feel like taking pictures of any of that part either, my apologies. Use your imaginations!
The four of us all felt like new puppies being played with the entire evening. But it was a really fun night. The Japanese ladies practiced their English. We practiced our Japanese. I caught and understood large snippets of conversation, which was very encouraging. We were served plate after plate of FOOD. Goodness, was there ever food! Hideko just kept it coming, until we all said at once that we were too full to eat anything else. And then after half an hour or so, we had tea and cake. This is the way of a Japanese party, folks. Take notes. After everyone went home and we all started to REALLY feel wiped out, we prepared for bed. I had trouble sleeping, so I went downstairs for a little while and prayed for a bit, then fell right to sleep once I got back upstairs.
Kyoto Station
View of the cool ceiling March 24, Monday After a breakfast of onigiri made by Hideko, I got a call from Daniel and the rest of the family with some Easter wishes and some hellos, which was just lovely. The four of us headed to Kyoto and went down to the Kamogawa, that is, “Duck River.” We watched the ducks and the cranes for a while, then headed to our first stop that day, Sanjusangendo, another temple. Lots of picture taking (as you can see), except for the main building in the shrine (no pictures allowed), which was actually an enormous hallway filled with 1001 giant golden idols… Terrifying to behold, really. If you want pictures, Google it. After Sanjusangendo, we had lunch at the river before we headed off to our next stop, Gion. Though we did make many stops on the way to peek in to a few other less famous temples that I don’t remember the names of.
Gion, unlike our previous stops, is not a temple or a shrine. It’s a district in Kyoto, well known for keeping that old-timey look of ancient Japan, as well as a home to geishas. Lots and lots of gifts for tourists everywhere
Kamogawa
Duck River you looked. Not many geishas that day, though. We saw a giant pagoda (which I think was called Yasaka Pagoda), as well as Kiyomizu-dera Temple. Many pictures for that one. It got to be late as we explored, and by the time we wanted food, the shops were all closing for a few hours (only to open up when the sun set). We combed the town and found an awesome udon place, where we proceeded to stuff our faces. Then it was time to return home.
Stay tuned for the next post!
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