Barakiyama Myoukouji

So this is a local temple - the name being that of the title.

I took an awful lot of pictures but only a few came out worth the time to view.  Obviously I took them in colour, but for some reason I can't stop making them black and white.  I think they look infinitely better.

This first one is absolutely my favourite.  It's one of my favourite pictures full stop; although the few people that have seen it are only lukewarm towards it.

Both of these pictures are of the same statue, the drinking/cleansing fountain at the entrance to all Japanese temples tend to have an interesting ornament, often somehow including the water itself (a fountain head, for example).

I've been to this place a couple of times and there are always fresh flowers at the entrance.  The one downside of black and white is that you can't see colour; amazingly enough.  Not so great with flowers.

As a side-note, it snowed the other day so I made a little video.

Kyoto Shrine Travels

So the first day in Kyoto was a travelling day.  Travelling by shinkansen meant that I really could have gone to at least one temple that day, but I didn't realise I'd be so relaxed by the time I got here.  So I did nothing bar more relaxing, which incidentally seems to be a strong theme in Kyoto.  Japans' relaxed capital.

So the next day I went with Pascal to visit temples and shrines around the Kyoto area.  I took about 200 photographs; far too many for here, so I'll try and pare them down a little.

Here goes...

So of course blogger is being stupid again, so uploading the pictures is proving rather difficult.  I just have to write with no paragraphing I think.  Anyway, here goes for a second time.  This is the entrance to the first temple grounds we entered.  It's quite big, and is every bit as impressive in person, as it is in this picture.  It has a number of temples inside, unlike a lot of places that have simply one entrance and one temple.

I should probably use my space more wisely, rather than posting a non-descript picture such as this; however I like it, primarily because of the generic nature of it.  Most of the places look like this.

So yet another pond with a bridge over it.  As stereotypical as it may seem, there are lots of these in Japan.  This day was actually really bright, so the challenge was reducing glare, more than trying to find a nicer position.  In this spot it looks cloudy or dark even.  I assure you it wasn't.  The hundreds of steps in Kyoto definitely wore us out.

And here we see an example of those many, many steps.  Above this point were another two sets of steps  like these; even the native Japanese were resting when they reached the top.  Then again they may have been travelling from Tokyo, where every incline has an escalator.

This is the view from halfway up the stairs.  I was too tired to take any pictures once I reached the top!

Here is another shrine peeking over the top of some stairs.  It's difficult to distinguish the differences between them, other than their size and colour.  That is until you go inside, where they all have a different arrangement of religious paraphernalia, along with varying amounts of gold.

You can just about see the leaves starting to change colour for autumn in this picture.  The Japanese are very proud of their seasons, and the distinctive weather and foods they bring.  Kyoto is also especially beautiful in Spring, with the cherry blossoms (a national obsession over here) and in autumn, with the orange and red leaves.  Unfortunately I've come to early for the leaves, and months too late/early for the cherry blossoms.

So this is the view from another of the sets of stairs we climbed.  It was even better in person, but I think it gives you a good idea of the size and scope of the mountain we were climbing.  And just how many people live in such a small area, Kyoto only has a population of 1 million or so!

So I'm also including this one for no real reasoon.  It's not a spectacular photograph, I just like it.  Erm...  That's about all the description I can give really.

So lots of women wear the traditional dress in Kyoto; getting them to pose for a photo is somewhat difficult though.  At least I thought so, until we met a Japanese girl who was extremely forceful in asking for photographs.

So this little tea room marked the beginning of a fantastic walk along a street that sold traditional crafts and clothes; coupled with a bizarrely out of place boutique fashion place selling lime green items of, presumably, fashion.  Who would buy such things is beyond me though.

This is the street.  It extends for a long way and takes a number of gravity defying climbs and claustrophobia inducing streets to reach the end.  It's full of shops and restaurants, and quite a few people.  It screams asia to me.  You could transplant this into any far eastern country, maybe add a little fish gutting in the mainland areas, and it could be in a movie.

I was so proud of myself for managing to get a good quality photo of some girls wearing traditional dress.  How easy it would later prove to be...

Look at how many people there are!  Tons of loud kids too.  Despite the large volume of people it was still a great site.  This is the second temple/shrine area we visited, and contained a number of brilliant things.  These included a couple of fellow tourists who we later explored a shopping area of Kyoto with.  Unwillingly on my part, it must be said!

I'm not sure what this building does, or did, but it was recently painted by the look of it, and deserves an honourable mention for the brightness of the paint standing in contrast with the dark woods of the rest of the area.

The mid afternoon sun peeking out from behind the building above.

So this is overlooking the city.  It was a really great view, I just hope some of it can be translated in this picture.

A view of the pagoda that's one of the main features of this area.  You can see it from a fairly long way away, despite it only being a few storeys high.

So everyone knows mountains are a real pain to build on; yet they insist on doing it here.  Why why why...  The result is that basically the views are fantastic both from the platforms, and looking back at them.  Good job, monks!

So this is another shot of the temple.  Inside is  a shrine to (something), but despite not knowing what, I do know it matches the splendour of the outside by being loaded with gold.  Everything is gold; gold as far as the eye can see.  Inside at least.

I include this picture for comedic value only.  This girl was having photographs of her taken by a professional photographer, so she's either a model, or she's some kind of model.  Therefore I figured I'd go and ask for a photograph and try to make her laugh; which I succeeded in doing, but only  after the photo  was taken.  Damn her professional attitude!  But yeah that kind of getup takes an extremely long time to put on.

The leaning tower of Kyoto!

There was a shirt shop...  I really badly wanted to get a shirt here, but they were 20 pounds for a single stupid slogan, and 30 for one printed front and back!  To expensive for my tastes unfortunately.  I took a photo of all the different options available, and corrected the guys English in the hopes of buttering him up enough for a discount.  No dice.

I should probably have spent more time putting in pictures of Kyoto, rather than these stupid shirts; but come on now, who doesn't love the bottom left one?

Five great big gold stars for effort, but only two for execution.  Still, this will be the last t-shirt one I promise.

Ok this is the last one.   It's a shame this one is so blurred, but you can still make out the writing.

And that was a couple of days ago.

I'm super expert!

A Trip to Harujuku and Shibuya

So yesterday me and a couple of guys I met in the hostel went to Harujuku to see the crazy dressed up people, and to see what the part of Tokyo you see on the T.V is actually like.  It was a little too hot for all the costume people yesterday, so there weren't that many out and about; but the dedicated few who were present provided quite a show.

After one of the party members left to head to Osaka (I think) we decided to go to Shibuya, where he hit some arcades and I laughed as he got whooped repeatedly.

After another hundred mile day we got home, and after agreeing to meet up for dinner I fell asleep and woke up at 8 this morning.  Oops.

Onto the photos!

Welcome to jam packed Tokyo.  This bit is the cool section, evidenced by the macdonalds signs everywhere, and the western shops on every corner.   For the record, it was in the high twenty degrees with a whopping humidity, bear that in mind when you see some of the costumes...

These dodgy maid outfits are everywhere.  I thought they were just myth, but they actually exist.

Is this a well recognised chain?

Ok that red suit is head to toe... Hot much?  Those glasses are also awesome and so is the hat.  He even moves as if he were a robot.  I have no idea what he's selling, if he's selling anything at all.  I do want his glasses though.

Same guy again, he's worth three pictures I think.

Again, I don't know what she's selling, all I know is that it's worth 980円.  This picture has a spiderman just offscreen.  He was livid that we were taking pictures of this girl, and we presumed that was because he fancied her, and was trying to chat her up.  He was awfully friendly with her, for simply being colleagues...

We saw this guy a few times around the place, but were never able to get a good shot.  He is some kind of tron/power rangers mix, and the bicycle he walks around with kind of makes me lean towards tron more.

This guy/girl was standing in the exact spot for more than three hours, we walked past him twice!  A lot of effort went into this one, ten out of ten!

These girls went the extra mile, even putting blue contact lenses in.  Tons of effort also went into these costumes, 10/10!

Same guys again, slightly closer to show the detail that's gone into these madhat costumes.

The golden flowers mean this is some kind of imperial owned site I think.

Shinto priests.  A wedding procession went past while we were ambling around the site.  It felt kind of weird to take pictures of the procession as tourists, not knowing the couple and generally being an unwanted nuisance.  From a selfish perspective however, I'll never get  an opportunity to see that again so I took as many discreet photos as I could.

More covert photographs.

This is the procession.  Everyone doled up in their finery.

A closer look at the formalities.  I was going to use the word 'festivities,' but somehow it doesn't seem apt for this particular photo.

They had the whole thing filmed, and all the cameramen wore green armbands.  To make sure everyone knew who was holding the camera?

The woman in the green/gold/beige was running around in and out of train organising everyone and everything.

I noticed that I hadn't managed to get a photo of someone wearing the traditional dress, so I pretended to be american, and asked this woman if I could take a photo.  The exasperation was evident in her demeanour, but it was a minor victory for non american English speakers everywhere.

As you can probably see by now, these ornately constructed roof and edge parts of their shrines hold a particular fascination for me, look at how detailed and ornate they are!

Another covert photo op.

I don't know whether these guys are asian or what, but they are insane looking.

These are the guys I went around with.  Whereas Europeans try to look normal in photos, and Asians do the two finger peace thing, americans try to look like they're about to shoot you.

As they would say, 'go figure.'

Also, never follow a texan, their sense of direction is awful.

Elvis is not dead.  He has been cloned, and taught to 'bodypop,' and now performs in duplicate, in the park at harujuku.  I bet you didn't see that one coming!

Showing off is showing off in any country.

I've no idea how you spell didgerydoo.  But his has a mic and is attached to an amp...

This dog park, is in the middle of the normal park and has several zones.  The little dogs go here, and the big dogs go elsewhere.  This is quite possibly the most pointless thing ever.  For one, how do you get the dogs here without taking them through the normal park?

There were a lot of people chatting away though, so maybe it's more of a way to meet people than to do some actual dog based exercise.

The weight categories made no sense either, 3kg - 12kg?  That's mike tyson versus me.  That's plainly not fair.

One of their old olympic facilities.

This is the picture of Tokyo you see in the news, on tele generally and in the films.   This is the view from street level.

This is the same view from a few storeys up.  This is a non-crowded, average, any time of  day scenario for crossing this street.

 

There is a person inside that, waving his or her arms up and down in a slightly worried kind of way...

For all your voltage testing needs.  They had about five stalls in a row, owned by different people all trying to peddle the exact same models of these.  Strange.  And kind of utilitarian for a country that doesn't have the D.I.Y concept.

It's a real shame this photo came out badly, because these guys were good.







That's all for yesterdays trips.