Of my Living in Kyoto

So I promised to explain my housing situation while I was in Kyoto, but never ended up writing about it. This was for a number of reasons, mainly there were more interesting things to write about, but there was also a severe lack of time.

I'm now beginning my second stint in Kyoto; and although I'm staying in the same house again, the number of people has changed, some new faces have moved in, some have moved out.

To explain the initial situation: J-hoppers ran out of space for a night, so I had to move out. They asked around for me, and a five bedroom house was available, for around the same price as I've been paying throughout this trip. Not really knowing what to expect, I walked into the house to find an old american woman and three Japanese girls.

The american woman moved out after the first night (not because of me, I might add) and I was left with Madouka, the excellent cook in all my 'how to,' movies, Fumie the hard working, hard drinking foil to Hiromi; who is an alien. I use the word alien advisedly, because I've seen several of them first hand; if I say any more, you might not wake up tomorrow though, so I'll stop there.

Hiromi is definitely an oddball; she's Japanese in terms of passport ownership and citizenship, but beyond that she's the least Japanese, Japanese person I've ever met. She speaks lots, is outward, loves speaking in English and Japanese, generally tends to love playing around. All in all, not very typical for a Japanese person.

In fact everyone here is extremely outgoing, and extremely hard working too. Hiromi pulls 12 hour shifts at a massage place; the temptation of assuming this was some kind of seedy operation was too much, so I booked in and was surprised to find it's a normal place. No yakuza or illicit dealings going on here.

Fumie has two jobs, and is trying to find a third for the weekends. Everyone here employs on a part-time basis, due to the service industry being as it is over here: flooded. So everyone gets part time jobs or 'Be I To.' Think German for that one.

We had lots of fun moments together in the house, usually involving cakes and beer or wine. It was very nice.

Then I went to Osaka.

And now I'm back with an australian guy who I met today, Fumie again, and Hiromi again. Also, there's a mysterious third woman, who I've not met. Madouka moved out to find a place with an oven, which she now has; and is extremely happy about. Although she says it's a little quiet at night. (Compared to our parties (that happened every night incidentally) a silo would seem quiet).

It shall be interesting to see what the new girl is like. Frankly, I've met three girls who are extremely special, and frankly, amazing. To expect anything of this new girl beyond a polite and curteous nod upon greeting, would be to expect four consecutive national lottery wins. Of one hundred million pounds each. It's not going to happen. I have therefore steeled myself for the inevitable let down of finding out she's normal, without becoming too hardened to become insensitive to genuine niceness.

She will have to walk in wearing a jesters hat and a tuxedo of some kind in order to steal the limelight from the other girls, though.

I'm off to go play some taiko with Mado-chan (Madouka). I've been sneakily practicing the Mario theme tune, and will somehow manage to get an incredible score and will therefore look like I'm a natural at this fantastic game. Of course, she will never know...

On a side-note. When is your beard too long? In Japan, this point comes when a girl walks past with her boyfriend and grabs his arm, holding it tight; just because she looked at you.

I think I will shave tomorrow. Maybe wash a few times, in case there are other reasons (gaijin-ness aside) for my repulsiveness.

The Great Camera Review!

In importing this post from openoffice there were a number of formatting errors, as a result the following post is probably going to be all kinds of screwed up.  Sorry about that.

So in Japan there's a department store called Yodobashi camera. I don't know how to spell Yodobashi in Japanese, if I did I would write it here now. This begs the rather obvious question of how I know which store is Yodobashi, and which isn't. This is easily answered by a Japanese phenomenon I am going to call, 'jingle fever.'

It begins when you leave the airport on the first day, and continues until you leave the airport on your final day. I suspect however, that the jingles continue long into the memory. I know the final lines of the Yodobashi theme tune for example, and I've only been in there a few times to peruse their goods and buy a mouse.

Cute sells here, cute sells a lot of things. If porsche wrapped their latest hypercar in a fluffy hello kitty outfit and bought it here, they would sell out in seconds. 'It's okay dear, we can live in the car...' This barrage of cute doesn't stop at the visual and endorsement aspects of daily life, it also hits your eardrums. If eardrums could acquire plaque...

The train stations have a little jingle when a train is coming in, and when an announcement is being made. Every department store has its' own theme. The convenience stores here even have their own themes; seven 11s is particularly funny, as they manage to leverage the final three syllables of e-le-ven into a two syllable tune – becoming le-ven. Therefore, all Japanese people call se-ven e-le-ven, 'se-ven lev-en.' It makes me smile, no matter how many times I hear it.

So coming full circle to the beginning of this post; I can spot a Ydobashi from fifty paces, not by the visual cues, but because of the jingle that rings out around the shop.

I've taken a number of pictures of the business district around here, because there's some serious work going on. There are more department stores (presumably department stores) going up, and they are gargantuan. The Yodobashi is twelve storeys of shopping floors with a further four or five of storage (at a guess) with five floors below ground, two for shopping, three for parking. This sounds very tame height-wise, by Japanese standards; but the surface area is enormous. Everything here has an american influence, and their street design is no different; so everything is arranged in blocks. The Yodobashi takes up half a block in all directions. It's massive.

So now we arrive at the actual point of this post. Drumroll please... The great camera review!

I've wanted a DSLR for some time now, but haven't really had the need for one. (Need is subjective of course. I don't need a camera like I need, for example, air.) Coming to Japan has shown me that actually, having an exceptional camera would afford great picture taking opportunities; and I've steeled myself for some kind of DSLR purchase.

So Yodobashi camera, despite the name, aren't solely camera based. It is however in their origins, and they have an entire floor dedicated to photography equipment, so there's no better place to go in order to try them out bar perhaps being a camera reviewer of sorts.

Depending on your approach, the first choice is either make or model. If you go with Canon, you are stuck with a few 3rd party lenses and Canon lenses only. If you take the Nikon route you have a larger range of lenses in the Nikon range, and a large number of third party lense manufacturers. Having nosed around the lense section though, it seems Canon, despite having a smaller range, is still well catered for.

This is important for the simple reason that once you've got a couple of lenses for whichever model, switching to a different manufacturer is going to be far more costly. No one wants to replace lenses when they have perfectly good ones sitting on their desk.

This makes the manufacturer choice all the more important.

The Nikon D3000 caught my eye; so I tried that out. From the top down, both Canon and Nikon (the two I narrowed it down to) have an identical menu system from the top of their range through to the bottom. This means if you've picked up one of their other cameras, you're immediately familiar with the one you're holding now. This is extremely good in theory, and works particularly well for Canon. Not for Nikon however, as their menu system is not very intuitive. After finding the setting for 'change me to English,'(日本語) (Japanese I think) navigating is easy enough, but changing settings can prove to be a pain in the backside. And finding them was a little tricky too. That's not to say this system is impossible to use; with a little practice, and some custom menu settings in place I'm sure changing what needs to be changed would be easy enough.  I believe the Canon does have the advantage here though.

I think this is primarily due to the Canons' menu layout. The Canon has a two menu system, where half a dozen different menus are selectable at the top, then depending on which has been chosen, a number of options are displayed. The Nikon seems to just throw everything at you all at once.

Both have customisable menus, which means you can put the settings you change most often right at the top of the menu list, for immediate access. I think overall Canon gets the nod here, but after a little practice they'd both be usable.

The D3000 was pretty light, and easy to use overall. The body was a little small, but that's probably good in the long run. One complaint I have about all the Nikon lenses I tested was the fuzziness of the focus ring. It felt like it'd been oiled one too many times, it slid around with no effort and required a more delicate touch than the Canon equivalents; I don't do delicate.

The D3000 was pretty solid overall; but then I moved from there onto the big daddy. The D3. This is the camera for professionals, and has the professional price tag. It's heavy, and big, and generally feels great to hold. This is where I move on to complain about the Nikon cameras a little more. All the cameras have a large number of focus points to choose from; but being able to choose which the camera should use is a pain in the backside with the Nikon, where it's simply a single button press with the Canon models.

The Nikon has so many buttons and things to press and twiddle that I spent five minutes figuring out how to get it to autofocus on what I wanted; when I managed to set this up however, it was amazing. I don't know how many fps it shoots, but it was too fast to review them all. Obviously I can't talk about image quality, but they seemed sharp when I reviewed them on the screen, and the focus worked perfectly every time. Of course it's indoors and the conditions are perfect, but the cheaper Canon SLR's missed a trick every now and again when continuous shooting; one would turn up a little blurred. Maybe it's just because it's in the shop and has probably been brutalised by the customers.

Overall, I think the D3000 is a little too whimpy. The D3 is probably out of my price range, considering it costs as much as a car...

The big daddy Canon offering wasn't available on the shop floor, but the next best thing, the D7 was available.

In a nutshell. I want this camera. It's brilliant. The menu is a piece of cake to run through, the settings are easy to change on the fly, even for a complete beginner like myself. The focus options are intuitive to use, being mapped to a single button on the body, instead of being buried inside the menus like the Nikons. The zoom and manual focus of the lenses were a treat, while the autofocus was damned near instant. I want this camera! It's a shame about the price though... Another car would sit on the forecourt if I bought this camera.

If a millionaire is reading this, please buy me the D1 mk4 when it comes out. If Jesus is reading this, please buy me the D7 or the D5 mk2. I can't afford either, but one can dream, right?

In light of the entire post being about cameras, and not my travels, it is worth pointing out that Osaka is not very nice. It doesn't have as many big attractions as the other areas (it has a zoo and stuff like that) besides the Osaka castle, which is fantastic, there's not a lot else to do other than shop, eat and drink. (Well, to this untrained eye it seems this is all Osaka has to offer. (Of course there will be more under the surface)

Maybe that's why it's hedonistic?

On a separate note, I'm back to Kyoto tomorrow.  Yay!

Chinese People: Be quiet!

So a couple of days ago I transferred accommodation once again, this time arriving in Osaka.

First impressions are everything in Japan, and my first impressions of Osaka were...

Well let's just leave it at 'not favourable.'  If I were a magic eightball, I would probably say something along the lines of, 'the outlook is bleak.'

I arrived extremely late, because I was having so much fun in Kyoto that I forgot I was supposed to go to Osaka; (a couple more Kyoto posts to arrive on your desktop at a later date) so I didn't have anywhere to stay that night.  This is not uncommon, as I've not booked accommodation since I've been here, travel information or other tourists have provided me with places to stay.  Not to mention the amazing house I stayed in, and hopefully will stay in again before I head back.  (More on that later, as well).

So I met a dutch guy, a Japanese guy, and then an Italian guy on the train from Kyoto to Osaka.  The first two were here on business, the Japanese guy was showing the Dutch guy around, because the Japanese guys' company buys a lot of stuff from Mr.Dutchmans' company.  This surprised me, I didn't think Holland had much of an export industry.  Anyway, they were shocked at my lack of preparation, and I explained that things usually end up alright in the end.

At this point the Italian guy hopped onto the train.  So we were all laughing at my struggling with my bag, (or maybe it was only them laughing?) and a conversation started.  It turns out the Italian guy was on his way back from a sightseeing trip, so I asked him where he was staying.  This is how I ended up where I am now, and is pretty much in keeping with the philosophy of my trip so far.

I've not seen the Italian guy since, but your name is Fabio, and I thank you, sir.  Your English is also excellent.  And yes, Japanese people are afraid of everyone non-Asian, don't worry, it's not just you, you don't smell.

So the first day of actual exploring began extremely late, due to me being very tired and forgetting to set my alarm.  I won't tell you exactly what time I awoke, for you would be ashamed; let's just say it was well into the afternoon.

I went for a soak in the sento, which is kind of like an indoor onsen, which is like a natural hot spring bath thing.  So it's essentially an indoor hotspring bath affair - I promise it's a lot better than it sounds.  A short while later I went and found a restaurant, sampled some more of Japans' delicacies and headed around the area.  I spent an awfully long time walking around, and have a vivid map of the area in my mind.

Unfortunately I walked into the red light district of Osaka straight away, which reminded me tremendously of Amsterdam.  And this pretty much sums up my impressions of Osaka.  It's like a European city.  If you read Chris's (the photographer) website, you'll notice he uses the word 'hedonistic,' a few times when writing about Osaka.  To be honest I think 'hedonistic,' was on his 'word of the day,' calendar when he was writing his website, because it appears a few times.  I would describe Osaka as, 'dirty,' if I were brutally honest, and 'extremely interesting,' if I were feeling particularly kind at the time of writing.

It is dirty.  It is more dirty than Tokyo, and Tokyo has ten times the population living in it.  Having now been to a few areas, there are some clean tourist and working areas, but generally speaking it's not an attractive place to look at.  There is a far higher concentration of homeless than in Tokyo.  Even counting for the fact that my accommodation is probably in the worst area (the price is ridiculously cheap; to the point of it being cheaper to live here than in an apartment) in Osaka, it has a serious homeless problem.  I stayed in the area reknowned for deprivation based problems in Tokyo, and it wasn't as bad as here.

Brothels and homeless aside, everything is extremely cheap, and the people are extremely friendly.  If you haven't spotted where this is going yet, I think Osaka should twin with Hull.  I wouldn't be surprised if they already were.  The people in both cities seem to be extremely simple, straight minded people who want to live their lives in the moment, rather than looking for the big bucks cities like Tokyo or London offer.

I noted in an earlier post that it's the similarities that astound me, more so than the differences.  Although Hull doesn't have the population, or economic importance of Osaka, both are very similar.

I walked into Osaka expecting to see something akin to what I'd seen elsewhere in Japan, and was shocked to see something so completely different.  I walked into Hull expecting the worst, but it did me well; and I'll never forget it.

So we now move onto the real purpose of this entry:  I visited Osaka castle today.  It's just about the only kind of culture in Osaka, as far as I can discern. (Zoo's, while fun, don't count as culture.)  Upon walking around I was attacked by hundreds of small school children, and Chinese people.

The children I don't mind, they run around and shout, are obnoxious and occasionally say hello.  The Chinese on the other hand, were annoying as hell today.  They barge you out of the way, like the elderly Japanese, as if they own the place, (regardless of age) and walk around everywhere shouting.  Even if there are only three people in a room, myself and two Chinese, my eardrums still bleed by the end of the encounter.  Listen up China, you will soon rule the world, we all know this, but you don't have to take Americas' approach to travel; THERE IS NO NEED TO SHOUT EVERYWHERE YOU GO.  Really.  No need.

Apart from this, the trip was generally successful; I enjoyed Japans' second best castle (according to an old boy who sat down and started a conversation in Japanese I only barely understood) and am now looking forward to Himeji, Japans' number one castle.

This is Osaka.  The little brother of Tokyo, and 'hedonistic...'  Apparently.

You can actually see the sky here, which you can't in Tokyo; that's a definite plus on behalf of this medium sized city.

This is on my way to the castle.  Again, lack of planning only slightly hampered my expedition, as I ambled around asking anyone who would listen where the nearest train station was.

This is the first time I've seen a european university advertised in Japan.

It's fitting that Japans grottiest city has ties with Scotland.

Nuff' said.

This is a college of sweets.  Instead of beckhamology, it teaches you how to make cakes and whatnot.  What an absolutely fantastic idea; why don't we have these in England?

Next time I walk into a university, I want to be bombarded with offers of how to make chocolate cakes.

If this doesn't happen I will be seriously disappointed.

The curve of the road accentuates the height of the buildings.

Even though they're not as high as the ones in Tokyo.

And even though they're too high to be considered as picturesque as the ones in Kyoto...

This place feels bigger than the imperial palace, even though it might/might not be.

There are a number of visible towers overlooking the outer walls, and the moat is collosal.  There were people fishing out of it.

You can see the modernity of the city nestled in the background of this picture.

This is a picture for all the horticultralists out there.

I think they're chrysanthemums, based on my limited knowledge of Japanese, I took a guess at the name.


Feel free to correct me.

This is the main castle building poking out from behind some trees, and infront of a large number of clouds.

The clouds didn't post a problem, and the view was fantastic, as you'll see below.

This is taken looking up at the eight storey building.  Of course, despite being shorter back then, the kings of this area knew how to build luxuriously, so each ceiling is tall enough for me to stand tall in; which is a nice feeling.

I still have the crippling need to bend into every doorway, just incase.  I fear this will make me look a fool in England.

Inside it's just basically a giant tourist attraction.  It's been gutted so many times in so any different wars that there's nothing left of the original place, so they just put in a lot of plastic and showy lights.

The view from the top.

It's really a lot better than even this picture shows.

From up here you can't see the dirt, so the city looks like any other metropolitan area.

Notice the giant golden fish?  Because I didn't, until I'd reviewed the photograph.

It's just a nice picture.  That's all I can say for this one.

Looking back at the castle from the ubiquitous koi pond.

It's amazingly peaceful just metres away from all the schoolchild based hubub right at the base of the castle.

It's a really nice place to just sit down and take in the surroundings.  It's  free too, until you enter the castle proper.  A lot of businessmen and women were enjoying lunch at the time of me taking this photo.

Every city in Japan seems to have its' iconic feature, usually a tower.  Tokyo tower, Kyoto tower; and this monstrosity that seems to have grown out of the ground.

This pretty much sums up Osaka.  It's ugly, but it's big and not going anywhere fast, so get used to it.

Well; that's my opinion anyway.

And you can see this thing from everywhere, just like the other towers in the other cities.


That's it for the blog entries today, I'll add my other Kyoto pictures, including the matsuri pictures at a later date.

Toji, the Day of Many Problems.

I've added another post, below this one, describing my visit to Toji before this event.  Click here.

So on the day of the flea market I was supposed to meet Pascal, and we were supposed to go around the flea market together.

This plan was scuppered however, as we waited for each other at different gates.  So eventually we both gave up and went into the market alone.

The market itself was extremely crowded.  The kind of crowded where you you can't move for a minute because of the throng surrounding you in every direction.  It's the kind of full where the old people rule, because they don't care about pushing everyone else out of the way in order to get where they're going.  They're like tankers in this situation, and cannot, or will not, stop for anyone or anything.  They're best avoided in these situations.

However there's a snag in this situation.  The market begins at 7AM and finishes at 3PM (roughly), so only those out of work can visit.  This leaves the elderly, students, and house mums.

Japan has a massive aging problem, similar to England.  There are fewer children born every year, and the population is tending towards seniors rather than children.

Never is this more evident than at market time.

Ninety percent senior participation at this event meant I became extremely annoyed at their rudeness.  The standards bred into Japanese for a lifetime are forgotten after a certain age, and it's extremely frustrating.

Thinking about it, I have another genetic problem, in not being Japanese.  I am not Japanese.  That's a problem for the extremely old here.  It's my belief that the society is divided into five layers in terms of age.  The children don't care about gaijin, and will often run up to me (in the small towns and villaged) and throw their English at me in an attempt at communication.  It's all very cute.  Young adults are somewhat perturbed by my presence, but most are friendly.  Middle aged people loathe my existence.  Elderly people are extremely friendly, and will help to the best of their ability one hundred percent of the time.  The extremely old once again loathe my existence on their shores, and would sooner stand on my feet than ask me to move; presumably because I'm a stupid foreigner who wouldn't understand even if I were asked.

All in all it's very interesting, but frustrating at times for sure.

Anyway, I enjoyed the experience, and ended up taking very few pictures in the end; primarily because I was too busy nosing around everywhere.

Tako is octopus.  Yaki is cooking, cooked, fried or grilled.  (I've no idea which).  The food above is takoyaki.  (Spelling is probably wrong.)  It's delicious!  The only problem is that it's round, which means the outside can be cold, but due to the efficient nature of the shape, the inside is kept at a constant lava melting, five hundred degrees.  I always burn my mouth.

This is how crowded it is.  The only reason there's space in front of the camera in this shot, is because I have a gaijin barrier, as all foreigners do.  This quite often proves to be extremely handy, especially on crowded trains.

The trick is to not take offence, and to occasionally (and discreetly) check to make sure you don't stink.

This artist was fantastic.  He mainly drew on pieces of driftwood, and I was dying to bring something home.  However, the legendary malaise of baggage handlers worldwide means it would inevitably break.

I did buy something from him however, and I will bring it home.

This is a picture of his wooden wares.  They're extremely expensive as you might imagine, but they're superb.  He has a unique style, and a unique medium.









Like I said, not many pictures from this day.

Kyoto Solo.

So I decided to travel around Kyoto all by my lonesome a few times, to check out the temples and shrines that litter this area.  Every traveller in Kyoto checks out a few shrines, and without exception they become bored after a couple of days of doing this.

I've been to tons of these shrines now, and I love seeing them all.  They all look similar, and all contain, with a few exceptions, the same type and shape of buildings.  I can understand why people get bored of visiting them, for sure.  I think I must be weird to like these places enough to visit a lot in such a short period of time...

It helps that I keep inadvertently walking into ceremonies and whatnot.  The monks praying, akin to western monks singing hymns and whatnot, coupled with short religious ceremonies and all the little encounters along the way keep me interested in these places.

Instead of being simple and easily amused, maybe I'm just lucky...

It's also worth noting, that it's been so long since I updated this blog, that all the picture are from a number of days, rather than sequentially.  Essentially, the pictures are now in some kind of topic based order, rather than date based.

Picture time!

This lovely river is the Kamogawa.  I'm giving it an extra big space on my blog because it's really pretty.  The further north you go, the nicer it is, but I was only a five minute walk from this section of the river, so I took lots of pictures here.

It's also where a dog relieved himself on me, the little bastard.  I didn't like dogs before, but now I hate them.  Especially Japanese ones, they have zero moral conscience.

Again:  Bastard.

I'm also quite interested in the levels of this particular river; because the walls are obviously there for flood events, but the grass was thick enough to walk on comfortably - so my question is basically, does this river flood annually?  Or often for that matter?

Ok so I've included a further three photos of the river here, in super small so you can gloss over them at your own pace.

It was about 4pm at the time of taking these pictures, and it was about 25 degrees.  In late October.  Pure craziness.  What makes this even more amazing is that people wear jumpers and long sleeved shirts.  I wish I were making this up, but I

could comfortably wear shorts and a t-shirt in this weather, and the locals are complaining about the cold.  In fact, one of the sayings I've learned since I've been here is 'samui desu ne,' which, roughly translated, becomes:  'Blimey it's cold isn't it?'

No.  It is not cold.  Take your jumper, gloves and hat off you crazy people!  One of the girls I lived with said she wears two sets of gloves when the weather becomes too cold...  I.e, when it reaches wintertime temperatures.

This is one of the many small temple/shrine sites that's dotted around the place.  I didn't set out to find it, but it was just on the way to Toji, one of the big temples in the area; when I happened across this site.

This is the wonder of being in Tokyo, or in Kyoto, above being in Osaka or Yokohama.  Interesting places abound in both cities, and can be found without seeking them.

This is in the same area.  I'm pretty sure this is a shrine as opposed to a temple grounds, it's therefore ok to clap while praying.  I think.

Luckily, I was literally the only person there, so I prayed after clapping, and prayed with no clapping in order to hedge my bets.

I paid twice as well, just to make sure.

It's amazing how self-conscious you become in a religious setting, where you (see: me) really couldn't care less in other settings.  Queues are sometimes optional, for example.  Of course this depends on what you're queueing for, but it serves as an example of the many uses of the 'gaijin pass.'

The old style building above is situated right next to this extremely modern concrete building, created in a traditional style.

It's interesting to see the acceptance of the modern in this extremely traditional area.  It's quite ugly though.  Nice try, better luck next time.  A gold star for effort etc...

These gates are everywhere, and vary in size from the huge, to the absolutely tiny.  This is a medium version.

I love the shape and general design; but it's been bugging me for a while.  Who exactly makes and maintains these things?

There must be artisans of Tori, who spend their lives making them.  I also wonder if they have to be blessed in some way before being erected.

I saw this building being constructed on my way to toji.  It's probably a garage, but I include it here because it's just as likely to be fully fledged house as a garage.  Only in Japan.

It also made me laugh that the builders were doing no kind of work whatsoever.  Just standing around.

Another similarity with England then!

This is another building that holds a bell.

One day, I want to dong one of these giant bells.  I've heard them from afar, but never witnessed one being struck.  They're for special religious observances, and therefore don't  get struck often.  At least they don't get struck while I'm present...

There were a lot of people around this particular bell, so I had to aim the camera upwards significantly, so you can't really see the bell particularly well.

This is Toji temple, the day before the flea market they hold every month or so.  I came because I wanted to see the before and after shots of the market, and also check out the famous sights in this area.

The difference between this shot, and the ones during the market is quite profound.  There were very few people here on this day, besides those setting up for the market, and a few tourists.

This is the same temple ground that the flea market is being set up in.  What a fantastic backdrop!

It's a really special site, (aren't they all?!)

Look at all that cool Japanese writing on the lamp thing.

One thing I do like about their writing is that it's the complete opposite of ours.  Top to bottom, left to right.  Essentially, their system is as different to ours as is possible.

With the surprise at all the similarities we share, it's nice to find a real difference every once in a while.

Of course Japanese is everywhere, but I understand so little of it that everything just kind of washes over me.  It's only when you see a sight like this that you remember.

Yes.  The woman in this pictures is wearing a jumper and flatcap.

Yes.  The sky is blue and practically cloudless.

And finally yes, I am sweating behind the camera.  It's about 25 degrees again, and it's generally a really nice day.

When does the weather turn here?  This is a question I've been asking myself for weeks.  I suuspect it's something I won't be able to answer in this trip.

I could have come here with literally no warm weather clothes and been ok.  It's really incredible just how warm it is here, considering the Japanese pride themselves on their four distinct seasons.

Of course up north they have house sized snow drifts, so it depends on where you go in Japan.

The leaves were just about beginning to change colour by the time I left.  However, to get the full effect (red leaves in Autumn, and the sakura in Spring are two of the reasons why Japanese take pride in their seasons) you need to come later in November.

Next year, perhaps.

The largest pagoda in Japan.

Presumably it's the largest in the world too, seeing as pagoda is a Japanese invention, and not really found anywhere else.

It is surprisingly big, considering it's made out of wood.  Without godzilla standing next to it though, it's kind of difficult to get a true sense of scale.

I was also lucky to go on a day when few other people were visiting, and those who were visiting were primarily Japanese, so did their best to stay out of photos.

I would like to think this sensibility is typically Japanes because they respect you as a person, and particularly love photographs themselves.  However, there is also a massive amount of concern about personal privacy here, so it's more likely that they think I'm some kind of stalker or identity thief.

This is looking directly up from underneath.  There's a socking great barbed fence underneath it, and dozens of warning to keep out.

I thought this a little odd, considering every other building I've been to in Japan lets you walk up to the sides, or lets you inside.  However, once I went round the back and saw it was supported by a couple of big steel frames, I realised it was probably in need of some repairs.  It looked perfectly stable from the outside though.

The view from the front.

It always amazes me how thin the actual central structures of these pagoda are.  Most of the building is just eaves.

I really like this particular picture.

Japan is the land of the rising sun, but it's also the land of the setting sun in turn.  The sun is really low in this picture, and the pagoda looks even more impressive because of that.

Look at the blue sky too!

And people still wore cold weather clothing.

I like this picture as well, even though it doesn't show very much.

Directly opposite the pagoda is this building, which houses tons of statues relating to buddhism.  They show a small cross-section of the history of buddhism, showing the evolution of the art related to the religion.  It's primarily statues, and only has thirty or so; but they're huge and impressive to look at, even if you don't have a clue what's going on.

These kinds of flags are everywhere.

I understood the ones rooting for the olympics, but seeing as they lost that a month ago, I'm not sure what these ones means.  Presumably they're not just too lazy to take them down; this is Japan afterall.

I should probably learn to read more of the language.  I am learning a little at a time, but at my current rate of acquisition I'll be able to understand these signs when I am two hundred years old (roughly).

So what does this mean then?

Well it means...

I don't know.  It's probably something religious, seeing as this is in temple grounds.

Zen gardening.

This is the kind of gardening I could get behind.  I think the straight lines are supposed to represent the sea; although that may have just been specific to the garden I was shown around, rather than all zen stone raking, so don't quote me on that.

It's extremely cool, whatever the reason.  And there are no pesky plants to go and die on you, no watering, and generally low maintenance.  Of course, if someone steps on the stones you'd have to kill them, but they should know better.

You see the sign.  Do as it says!

Japlish, or Engrish as others call it, still makes me smile - despite seeing examples of it a dozen or more times a day.

It really makes me laugh.

A random picture of some stone.  All the buildings, and most of the paving is done with this material; the amount of effort that goes into crafting these places boggles the mind.

It's going to take twenty years to renovate York cathedral, with all the unique blockwork that entails; it would probably take longer to cut all the shapes and lines that go into the temples here; purely because of the scale of the site, not necessarily the buildings..

This heron was eyeing up the carp in the pond below.

The fish were also eyeing up the heron.

The koi over here reach proportions that really boggle the mind.  The heron is in serious trouble if it goes for any of the fish in there.  A definite case of eyes being bigger than stomach.



That's it for the pictures of this days temple explorations.  It ended up only being one days worth afterall.

How Many Days Has it Been Now?

It's been five days since my last blog post.  I write when I have some time to spare, or am sitting in a coffee shop waiting for something to happen.  As you can probably imagine then, I've been doing an awful lot; too much to write about, and so much that I'm not even able to begin writing it.

This will change now though, as my scenery has changed.

Tomorrow will probably herald a blitz of new posts!

Stay tuned!

A Day of Temples and Eating.

So the day after we had arranged to meet with a monk and sort his garden out; we arranged to go sightseeing with the same monk and uparupa.  We were chauffered around by another man this time.  Thank you driver-san!

So anyway; this day was really good, the large number of people meant everyone was always smiling and being silly which is the recipe for a good day in my books.

We visited a large shrine area, the name of which eludes me at this point; but I was finally shown how to pray properly.  Of course James monk was the one to show me how, so by havnig a monk show me I think I'm safe to practice in front of others.  If a monk can't show me the right way to pray, then who can?

After the walking around and photography we walked around a small shopping square and someone bought some tea; I bought some ice cream and snacks and then we headed off to dinner.

Pictures of which are below.

Needless to say, I ate a lot that day... An awful lot...

I've not read a single newspaper, or watched a single English language news report since I've been here.

I had a little spare time before we headed out, and the first headline I read is one that makes me want to cry.

No, don't reform the diet to include English style campaign financing laws...  *sigh*

There seem to be a lot of small roads following the major river that runs through Kyoto, (the name of which escapes me at the moment, maybe the Kamogawa, I'm not sure.) and none of them seemed to have any safety barriers.  They're all single track too, which means the whole sensation of driving along these types of roads is extremely free.  I doubt anyone who's sober goes off the edge, and the roads here seem pretty safe overall.  I've only seen one accident, and both cars seemed fine.  I.e, The crash occurred at some traffic lights at four miles per hour.

This is just after the entrance to the temple grounds.

It transpires that the difference between a shrine and a temple is down to which religion the grounds belong to.  If it's Buddhist, it's a temple.  If it's Shinto, it's a shrine.  When you're at a shrine the process for worshipping is slightly different as well.

For the first time in my life, I'm interested in religious goings on.  However, I'm still only really interested in the processes, results of monk based labour and the architecture.  (How to pray properly and looking at the amazing gold statues thinking, 'bloody hell that must have taken a lot of money and time to make.')  I've never been much interested in religion; but a good temple, monastery or cathedral is always worth a look!

This building looked good from every single angle.  We tried, and failed, to find a single position that was ugly or strange.  It sits perfectly in the landscape and blends perfectly with the water.

The lake surrounding the temple also provides a fantastic reflection.  It's a little difficult to see in this photo, but when the sun peeks out from behind a cloud the whole scene is reflected by the water, creating the illusion of there being another world hidden somewhere inside this temple.

It's wabi-sabi!

Yeah; try and explain that to a belgian while walking around a temple...

I couldn't!

Beauty in unrefined things?  Maybe?

Fallen leaves on a path?  That kind of thing?

I have no idea how to explain it, primarily because I've only got my own interpretation of what it means; I've never been taught its' meaning.

The same temple from a different angle.  We were too late to see inside, which is a bit of a shame because this seems like a building that would be as interesting on the inside as the outside.

It also has a cool little bridge running over the water, in the classical Japanese style.  Well, classical as we think of it in the West I suppose.  They do have a large number of them here though, so maybe it's not a misguided preconception for a change.

It's a little dark, but in this picture you can see the reflection I mentioned earlier.

The sky was a really fantastic colour on this day, and the clouds looked as if they had been painted with a thick calligraphy brush; so the whole image was pretty much perfect.

My camera kept struggling with the contrast between light and dark places though, so some pictures are horrifically over-exposed, and some are under-exposed.

I really like this picture, despite it being too dark.  You can see the type of clouds I was talking about earlier; and the surrounding trees reflections' are really nice.

This is one of the mental image of Japan I held before coming here, and I'm glad to be able to say I managed to capture that view.

Still water is everywhere here, so I've seen this picture in a number of places - I've just not been able to capture it!

This is taken from the same place, but looking at the temple building.

With a greater emphasis on the sky this time!

From right to  left:  Uparupa-chan, James Monk, Driver-san.

The rest are just random tourists, but I liked how everyone was in a semi-circle and could therefore be seen by the camera.

Driver-san had an awesome camera; but it's a few models below the one I want.

(But don't tell him I said that!)

A final picture of that amazing temple.

Sorry about the large number taken of a single building!

Ok so one more picture of that building...

So I took about fifteen photographs trying to get the sun setting on this bell, but none of them were any good.  So you'll have to settle for this picture of the roof of the belltower (it's only a few mtres high) and a tree...

The sunset over one of the minor temple buldings.

Some of the skies here are fantastic colours, but often not very different to those we have in England.

I can definitely see why this is the land of the rising sun, with their 5AM sunrise and 5PM sunset every day, that does not seem to change.  But I don't think they have any more impressive sunsets than we do.  Maybe if I wake up at 5AM I'll see some really amazing sunrises.  But let's face it, something extremely special would have to happen in order for that to happen.

It's the J-CREW.  Here to fight crime and save the world.  Or something...

I honestly don't know how, but I told them to strike a pose and they all did it without even having to think.

There are some serious pose striking skills in Japan.  It's a skills base that I think is horribly underutilised within society.  I mean come on now, how awesome is this picture!  No planning!

A picture of a picture of a picture.

Being taken.

This took about five times longer to orchestrate than the strike-a-pose as seen above!

Modern art in action, folks!

The sign said, don't go down these stairs, and definitely don't go near the water.

He who dares wins.  And in this case, I won a good photograph of the river at dusk.

It's amazingly calm in this area, despite being relatively close to railway lines and roads.

He who dares, wins.  And maybe this man won a fish.  Who knows.

I wasn't going to wait around long enough to find out, my feet were wet and getting cold!

The sky at night.  Or dusk to be more precise.  But we can clearly see the vast space dedicated to this park; a rarity in the cities of Japan.

We can also just about see the three muskateers without whom, this journey would have been rendered impossible.

あろがとうおざいます！

After my ice-cream, chocolate bun and chocolate ice-cream snack, came this wonderful (if a little expensive) dinner.

It's a bit of a shame, but a family were eating opposite us, and thy had a small kid who kept waving and pulling faces at the big stupid looking foreigners.  To which I pulled faces back and whatnot; but the dad kept telling her off.  Just let the stupid idiot kid be stupid, he'll be crushed by society soon enough, and will no longer have the inclination to have any fun; it happens to everyone after all.

Itadakimasu!  Said before every meal.  Something akin to, thank you for the food.  It probably has a religious significance, but I'm not sure.














And that was the fun temple trip!

Thanks to everyone involved!  It was a really great day.