Day Seven - Kyoto

Oh man... it's the half time checkpoint of my trip... I dowanna go back to Malaysia! I dowanna! waaaaaaa~

*ahem* Anyway as I mentioned yesterday, there's this cafe in Kyoto city where I can connect via the wireless network for free. Thanks to Freespot for providing the free connection, making the daily blog updates possible!



So this is the place, Seattle's Best Coffee. At that time, I was updating the Day 6 blog entry, also chatting and webcamming with my good friends. On the left is my breakfast: a simple muffin and coffee, both are delicious. Trust me, coz my mom approves of it :D



While I update my blog, my mom reads up on Japan. Hopefully she doesn't get too bored, since I'm gonna do this everyday. We're here in this cafe anytime between 10 am to 1 pm, so if you happen to be in Kyoto, drop by!

Ok people, I'm so sorry that I have so many pictures in this blog entry (63 pictures!), but I just cannot filter any of them out! Some pictures are there not just to be beautiful, but also to tell the tale of my travels. So I hope you bear with the speed of loading all the below pictures.



Our next destination is Keage, in which we had to take the chikatestu (subway train).



Kyoto station is like the hub for all transportation, so the train was quite full. I'll take more pictures of the subway trains when we're in Tokyo.



My mom sat on the priority seats, coz she's a... shh don't tell her... senior! hahaha!



We met up with Juita before reaching Keage station. She was sweet enough to spare her precious free moments to show us around. Thanks, Juita.



Some of the Sakura petals have dropped on the floor. Their beauty is still intact, even on the floor.



Mama and Juita in the neighbourhood in front of the Keage station.



Above is the Kyoto International Community House, where people from various countries can get together do loads of stuff: put up notices and recruitment ads, read in the library and for us, get information about getting around Kyoto.



The signboard should prove that I'm here, else the hall looks like a typical lobby in Malaysia!



The lobby actually is quite well furnished. Here we have circular sofas and tables, considering that the floor space is circular itself.



To further highlight the word INTERNATIONAL in the Kyoto International Community House, you can watch CNN and BBC in the lobby! Luckily, my mom was considerate enough not to get her eyes glued to the screen. She's such a news fanatic.



Ah, this one, definitely Malaysia doesn't have! There's a cafe in the Community House, with a very beautiful view.

Once we had all the required details (thanks to Juita for getting them for us), we walked towards the Nanzenji temple.



Here we are at the... uh... damn I can't read Kanji! I can only read the first three, Dai (big), Hon (book) and Yama (mountain). I'm not even sure whether I'm right!



This is Mama and Juita in front of the Nanzenji temple. The black area of the temple is not a big shadow; the temple was actually burnt (for some apparent reason, but I dunno what :P).



Those who played Gran Turismo 4 should find the Nanzenji temple area quite familiar. Can you imagine posing your favourite car on this walkway?



I remember there was a fixed camera with this kind of view in Gran Turismo 4.



The area around the Nanzenji temple is really pretty.



Sakura petals stuck on the steps in front of the temple. I love this shot, dunno why.



This is the "longkang" (drain) of Kyoto. I forgot to mention that all the longkangs in Japan have very clean water running through it! Some even have fish swimming in them! :o



Juita wanted to show us this amazing tree, so we walked towards a small little shrine.



Yup that's the tree. It's growing horizontally, and it's so l-o-n-g.



This is where you throw in the coin, dangle the rope to ring the bell and clap twice to pray for whatever you wish for.



Running across the Nanzenji temple is an old aquaduct. Juita mentioned that there were big fishes in the aquaduct. Mama and Juita looked with anticipation, but found nothing :P



This is the bridge that holds the aquaduct. Told you it was old.



Yay, super perspective view.



Juita led us along the aquaduct. After looking at this picture, the host of our guest house, Nagano-san, mentioned that he thought that there was nothing at the end of this aquaduct.



Nagano-san, you're so so wrong! You better go along the aquaduct next time, coz you'll be treated with a nice park to relax your feet. Here's my mom and me, smiling at you, Nagano-san :D



Sakura petals on the floor. I'm so attracted to them, I dunno why.



Just check out the layering of various types and colours of trees. Simply breathtaking.



After the park, there was an old unused railroad track, and it seems that you can walk on it. This is ONE of my daily obligatory pose. I just can't decide which one is the better one. You can decide for me if you want. This is the first one. The second one is coming up.



A kid playing with the track.



Actually we made one big round. First I took a picture from above the bridge...



...then an hour later, I took a picutre of the bridge itself! As you can see, the same Sakura branch was taken.

After that, we returned to Kyoto International Community House. Juita had to leave because she had a part-time job to attend to. Thanks for your time, Juita!

So we walked on. Juita told us that there was a beautiful shrine nearby called the Heian Shrine, so we decided to walk there.



On the way there, I stumbled upon a baseball field, which I found very significant, as it is the most popular sport in Japan, alongside Sumo. But Hideyuki-san said that now soccer is catching up, might replace baseball in the near future.



Another popular sport in Japan is Tennis. An anime about Tennis (Prince of Tennis) was just over, but I bet that sparked a lot of interest in Tennis among youngsters in Japan.



Mama pointed out a bird on the Sakura tree, so I tried my best to capture it. I'm not so good with agile animals like this bird, so this will have to do.



We were almost reaching the Heian Shrine. In front of it, there's this big O-Torii. I thought that the composition of the stone slab, the O-Torii and the traffic light looked kinda cool :D



A kimono-clad woman near the stone slab.



Finally we have reached the Heian Shrine. Check out my face, full of excitement.



The area around the shrine is a big wide grainy sandy place. Reminds me of the big temple in Beijing for some reason.

Little did we know that the main highlight of the Heian Shrine is not the shrine itself, but the Japanese Garden. And my goodness, it was sooOoOooOO beautiful! As usual, I would not caption the pictures below, wouldn't want the beauty to be distracted by me. (again, an excuse for my sheer laziness) :D













I really got nervous here. I wouldn't know what to do if my mom fell down. Luckily that didn't happen.





And this is my second choice for the daily pose. So help me decide: the train track picture or this one?



Oh man ~ sooo beautiful ~





Looks like the last scene of Memoirs of the Geisha, doncha think? :)





This is another part of the Japanese culture. You first draw lots from some container (was not allowed to take pictures), then you get your fortune. To make the good fortune come true, or to make the bad fortune go away, you have to tie the fortune to some wire or grill.



They really know how to tie it neatly, don't they?



And put them all together, they make a beautiful pink tree of papers. Even during religious ceremonies, they are creative. Amazing.



And this is my favourite shot of the day! Managed to capture two kimono-clad ladies with the O-Torii at the back.

Juita also mentioned about this shopping district, coz we wanna buy stuff for ourselves as well as souvenirs.



This is Sanjou-dori, the shopping district of Kyoto. As you can see, life here is not so slow-moving.



This is the popular open-air mall at the end of Sanjou-dori, forgot the name though. My mom and I had a tough time looking for stuff, but it was success for both of us!

When I saw this sushi place called Kappazushi, my stomach started grumbling. In response to that, we entered the restaurant.



This is a restaurant that serves cheap sushi! Only 105 yen (RM 3.32) per plate (any plate!). Cheaper than sushi in Malaysia!



This is the typical salmon sushi. Very fresh.



Ooops, ate one squid sushi without taking a picture. Oh well.



This is my favourite! Yummy and soft salmon belly! And it's still 105 yen! I wonder how they do that.



This is my mom's Miso soup. Just check out what they put in there! And it was very flavoured, very tasty.



This is my own personal pagoda, haha.



Burp.



We sat on the second floor, and this is the first floor. Damn, one of the girls caught me. I really have no luck in catching cute girl photos.



And we made our exit from the Kappazushi.

Whoo, really had a great time yesterday! The shrines, the garden and the souvenirs!

Today we'll be going to a rural Japanese village, then I might be going to the hot springs tonight. Stay tuned!