Travels in Japan

I have been trying to go travelling in Japan as often as possible. I aim to go to a new city each month. I'm finding it really expensive to travel here though.

I went to Kyoto in August with a number of ALTs. There was me, Sophie (Bristle, UK), Jen (Alabama, USA), Danielle (Wisconsin, USA), Gayathrie (USA), and Sal (UK). Kyoto is a city about 3 hours from Kanazawa. It has many old temples and pretty neat stuff to see, in terms of actual historical buildings. Kyoto used to be the old capital of Japan.

All of us stayed at a hostel called Budget Inn. There were 5 of us in one room. I ended up sleeping by the door because no one else would. That turned out to be the best thing because I could come and go as I wanted. And being an early riser, it worked out to be the best.

Left: A tower outside of Kyoto Train Station.  Right: Our sleeping arrangements. They have no idea I took this.

The reason why we went in August is because of a holiday called Obon - I think it's called "Day for the Dead" or something like that. It is my understanding that's when all the relatives go and pay their once a year respects to the dead. People here are born a Buddhist and die a Buddhist, but practice Shintoism the rest of the time. The graveyards are decorated with lots of lanterns and people are going through the graveyards. It's pretty scarey thinking that we were wandering through a graveyard at night, but it was so beautiful because of the sea of lanterns we saw.

Left: Lanterns made by students. Not sure where these kids were from. Right: Taken at the top of the graveyard looking down below.

Also, there's something called "Daimonji". No idea what it means but basically, on a side of a hill, they clear away tons and tons of trees. Then they create a Japanese character on the side of the mountain - I suppose the character is made up of large logs or something burnable. They, around 8:30 pm or so, they light up the piles of logs so that the Japanese characters can be seen for miles everywhere. It's really cool - unfortunately, none of my pictures turned out.

We visited the old Imperial Palace, Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) and Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavilion). We also visited Kiyomizadera and some other things. There's lots of historical things to see there. But I'm not a very historical kind of person.

Left: The old imperial palace. It was boring - we couldn't enter the buildings. Right: Me in the imperial garden. I look so frumpy!

Left: Kinkakuji - the golden pavilion. It's covered in gold leaf. Right: From left to right: Jennifer, Sophie, me, Gayathrie and Danielle

Left: Ginkakuji - the silver pavilion. It was raining really hard. Right: Soph & I hit the jackpot! All we could eat for $17. YUMMY!

Left: Kyiomizudera - a temple famous for its grand views from the main hall. Right: Love stone found at Kyiomizudera.

The deal with the love stone is that there are two of those stones, maybe 50 meters apart. You have to close your eyes, touch one, make a wish and walk to the other one with your eyes closed. If you do it without any help and without peeking, then your wish will come true really fast. If you peek (which I briefly did) then the wish will take a while to happen. And if someone guides you, then you will need advice in regards to your wish. I had help and I peeked. It's ok though, I don't expect my wish to come true anytime soon, especially being in Japan.

Main Page |  August - Kyoto |  October - Takayama  |  November - Osaka  |  November - Tokyo

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