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.

So I met this person at breakfast...

Now this is a story of stupidity, if ever there was one.  I met someone at breakfast this morning, and we spent the whole day walking around the Imperial Palace grounds.  Upon the completion of the day, she bought me dinner, to which I vowed to repay her with a drink or two.  She was australian, and although she was a dancer and therefore quite keen on health, her natural heritage kicked in and a *possible* drink later today was arranged.  However, this was an extremely tentative arrangement.  So I took her name, saying 'I'll add you to facebook, and I'll send you the pictures from today over,' (she forgot her camera.)  So I wrote her extremely complicated name down on my phone and we parted ways.  Now, upon my return to the hostel, I find that my phone has not saved her name, and it has in fact deleted all the notes I've placed onto it...  This is really frigging annoying...

So it's also worth noting that the imperial palace itself is only open to tour groups once every fortnight, with extremely limited availability, and during the emperors birthday, so you can only walk around the grounds themselves.  We knew this, but were amazed at how heavily guarded  the actual palace is!  You can't even see it, because of all the trees.  That was a bit disappointing.

So after that, this unnamed girl wanted to shop for some things, to take back home I believe.  So we had a quick look through some stores, oh I forgot to mention, THIS IS AFTER SHE BOUGHT ME DINNER, shit I feel like an ass now...  So yeah I have some funny pictures of products that are, apparently, normal over here...

Let's go pictures let's go!

The style of blockwork here is prevalent throughout, and isn't supported by cement or any kind of fixing.  The walls range from sitting height, up to about 30 metres high, overlooking the moats that surround the place.  Most medieval castle and surrounds back home are quite cramped, with room enough for a few peasants and a bit of  land, but this particular place stretches forever.  I doubt any peons were allowed inside during its' heyday, but there is a lot of room inside now, it's like a park.

You'll notice that most of these pictures have the old style about them, but then a socking great skyscraper in the background.  That is pretty much Tokyo in a nutshell, it has about five large park areas, kind of like London, that are then surrounded by immense city structures.

This was the old guard barracks.  Interestingly the whole place was built around the 1600's, so by most standards that's not particularly old.  Then again, Tokyo wasn't the capital until recently, so maybe this has something to do with it?  Maybe the old palace grounds were in Kyoto.

This is the head honcho of the royal guards' abode.  These stylised 'life size' bonsai are everywhere, and must take a long time, even now, to train and upkeep.

This is one of only three original guard houses within the grounds.  They were strategically placed around the grounds, on the walls overlooking the interior grounds.  What you can't see from this photo is the fifty foot drop on the ledge this thing is overlooking, into the moat.  Although there were around 18 or 19 of these placed around the perimeter, that leaves a huge amount of space beetween each.  Regular patrols and, presumably, fast horses would have been necessary for constant surveilance.  What you can't see from these pictures is the constant elevation change, throughout the grounds.  It's a giant basin, basically, with sheer drops on the outside.  I seriously doubt this was naturally a basin in the middle of Tokyo, so there must have been a gargantuan amount of effort in digging this into shape at some stage.

Another shot of the guardhouse.

This structure on the left has an interesting story.  They built this base, and then on top, built some kind of pagoda.  It took thirty years to build, and got burned down within twenty.  How annoying is that!

Another thing I noticed about their wall buildind technique, is that the corner pieces always lean down.  Look at the white block on the left.  That block is essentially leaning into the rest of the wall, lending the corner, which is already the strongest point of the wall, extra solidity.  The exterior walls are constructed in much the same way.  The blocks in the middle of the wall, comprising most of the surface would then presumably be forced together by the weight of the massive corner blocks, as well as from those above.  They don't slope in any manner, which is worth noting, considering these walls can be 20 feet thick on the exterior, and substantially more at the base.  They all slope inwards, as you look upwards, like a dam.  Basically you would need a meteorite to knock these down; I can't see any kind of catapult breaking these walls.

These particular stones were all scratched in this way, in a very regular pattern.  I can't see them having used  machine cutting tools of any kind 400 years ago, but I also can't see why they'd have scratch marks on them like this.  Then again, the Chinese had movable print thousands of years ago, so maybe the Japanese  stole JCB digger technology from them during one of their crusades.

A close-up of the rocks.  They look kind of haphazard, but it works.  Wabi-sabi at its finest!

This is at the top of the structure that got burned down, looking out to  the city beyond.

This is 180 degrees to the other picture.

This is one of those bonsai style fully grown trees that has found purchased on this plateau, and is currently trying to escape over the edge.  I don't know whether it's looked over there, but it's a helluva long way down...

Toodays unknown travel buddy said these particular stones looked evil, because of the black streaks running through them.  I think this evil thing might be true... Afterall the building on top of here did burn down soon after it was built!

Notice how the ends slope down towards the middle section.  And also notice the bonsai style tree gamely escaping the top!

Guess this plant!  The grounds had all the plant names written on little sticks in the ground, but they were in latin and Japanese only, so I didn't know any of them.  They were also too small to photograph because the focal length of my camera is measured in timezones, not mm.

Look at the width of that moat!  I don't know how deep it is either, but this place is essentially impenetrable.  The walls are finished to a nicety, so only spiderman, and that french climber who calls himself spiderman would be able to climb it.  Then stick a couple of swords, a shield and some armour on them, and laugh as they get very wet.









This is the first half, the second half will probably happen tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I fall asleep.

This is one of the entrances to the grounds, built upon the giant wall that surrounds the city.


These photos all kind of look the same I guess... There's a ton of green in the garden at the moment, but not so many flowers.  I think we were a bit late for that kind of thing.

The views along the straight lines created by the walls are tailor made for this city, with its' massive skyscrapers and metropolitan skyline.  Unfortunately I don't think any camera in the world is able to capture that.

There were some nice palm tree type things around the place, which struck me as odd but I guess it shouldn't have; considering anywhere this hot is probably capable of growing anything they might want to, up to and including cactii.  It might need an umbrella though...

This is my attempt at an artsy fartsy photo.  These cool little secluded places were all over the place.  I went for the light sky, versus dark building.  I don't know why.

This sums up Tokyo.  Park+gravity defying skyscrapers = a strange combination.  Whether it's good or bad, works or doesn't is up to you.

Another shot of the hidden/not so hidden building.  I captured it from all four sides, but one of them got away so you'll only see it from three on here.

This is probably one of my favourite shots of this particular building.  It's like this from almost every angle when you actually see it up close, but capturing the ease with which it sits in the landscape on camera is exceptionally difficult.  They always make things tricky over here.

This is looking down upon the park.  The foreground is a little rampant and someone snuck a tree into the middle of the photo when I wasn't looking, but overall it looks nice.

This is just a little further along.  This spring feeds into the main lake area.  I can't see it being natural due to the nature of the site, and its location within Tokyo, but I couldn't hear a pump or any kind of mechanisation so the illusion is flawless.  They do the running water thing really well over here.

The water isn't very clear but the fish in here have wings.  I think I might have snapped one of them.

Make your own red bull jokes.  They move like normal carp though, so despite the aeronautical design these things will only fly onto dishes across the nation.

Bamboo forest.  No pandas allowed.

The demon fish.

Someone asked me if people dress like this normally, in every day life.  The answer is here, at four pm on a random station with no scheduled costume party thing going on...  Yes they are all completely nuts.

Onto the funny photos.  I do not know what the balls are for in the blusher...  Anyone out there know?

The MOST amazing toast holder ever.  I was laughing for a long time after seeing this.  There's this whole gothic obsession over here at the moment, that is either presumably five years behind us, or five years ahead; thinking cyclically.

This is like bath salts, advertised for women with a practically naked woman in a suggestive pose on the front?  Isn't that the wrong way round?  This also made me laugh.

Ok so this is tipex or correction fluid, BUT IT HAS A TOOTHBRUSH AND TOOTHPASTE ON THE FRONT.  I want to see the advert where a small child puts this stuff on his toothpaste and realises it's not toothpaste.

This picture is amazing.  Firstly the description of the item.  I'm going to use marketing speak, to try and sell this product to you.

Tired of the boring, tiring commute from the office to your house?  Then try our new pino, for those who work too hard and tooo long to bother with trains.  Simply take our product from the convenient carry case, slide one or both arms into the comfortable rests, AND SLEEP AT YOUR DESK!  Arrive to work before even your boss does with the new pino!

 Holy sweet jesus.  This product actually exists.  I am now not surprised by the number of suicides there are here every year.


Updated!  Done!