[working title]

[post written on 6/6/06]

On Friday, the 2nd, we left for Kyoto. In the blue backback is Danielle, next, in the red one, is Stefania, next to her is Martha(you can sort of see her shoulder), the tall guy is Evan, and the guy in front is Rich. In this pic, we're headed to Aksaka station, where we took the metro to Tokyo station, where we caught the Shinkansen (bullet train).



Here's tokyo Station- Shinkansen translates literally into new main line, isn't that interesting?


When we were going to our platform there was this odd add. a duck and a crab in scuba gear... i don't have the foggiest idea what it's about but it was cute.


Here was the Shinkansen as it arrived.


And here's my ticket. We left at around 4:30 and got there at about 6:45.


Yay, we got to kyoto. The top two characters mean Kyoto, in the middle is the pronounciation in hiragana, and at the bottom is the phonetic pronounciation in english.


Here's our hostel. It was called Kyoto Cheapest Inn and it was pretty gnasty. I kept my stuff in a locker at all times and I didn't use my blanket because it was pretty gross. but, it was only 20 bucks a night so that was kinda nice.

Here was my bunk.

below me was rich's bed. sitting on it is Martha and next to her is stefania.


At the hostel, we met a british guy named Ben who had been backpacking across china and was now going through japan. He'd been in Tokto for about a week and offered to show us a really nice shrine that's open at night and part of Gion, the entertainment district of Kyoto.

Outside the Kyoto metro there was this woman playing a yanqin (an instrument I just googled)


Before we went to the temple or Gion, we walked along the bank of the Kamogawa River. There were couples and groups of friends sitting on the sand along it. It was really pretty.

To get there, we walked through some old japanese-style homes and resturants. Here's an alley.

And here's a random poster. craaazy.

There were performers all over this area- here is a guy playing guitar, a little later there was a gorup of people playing guitars and singing.

Along the shore there was a firetwirler and a group of people playing intsruments behind him.

He later ate fire.. it was pretty rockin'

Then we went to Yasaka Jinja(Shrine). Here it is all lit up at night.. or at least the gate.

and here's everyone. (L->R) Ben, Stef, Danielle, Evan, Martha, me, Rich.

Here's Ben at the purification place, he didn't realise that i was taking a picture.

And here's some more of the shrine.

Here's one of the main buildings with lanterns all around lit up.

more shrine

lanterns...

tori

a bamboo fountain

more tori

a path with lanterns, along the right side are about 6 small shrines

here's one of them

and another


then we left the shrine and walked around gion. The ends of the roofs of the houses were really low so i took a picture because you could see the details- this is what many temple roofs look like too.

here was a little house on a back alley. it had a security camera but it looked old... i dunno.

and a mowtown cafe in gion...

then we got back to the hostel and slept.


[fin.]