Fushimi Inari Shrine

Our first full day in Kyoto started off with mystery breakfast! The several of us who chose this particular ryokan were shown into a side room on the ground floor after we had woken up. And inside we found... food.

Toast and apples!

This is basically the only toast that I had during the entire trip (yes, I went 2.5 months almost completely without toast) so I was naturally pretty excited.

Me showing off the toaster that the nice old man brought.

There was also coffee.

We began our sightseeing for that day with a trip to the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine. This shrine is well known in Japan for its great red torii gates.

Candiece shows off a gate.

Oh yes, we also had those other creeps with us.

Well this shrine isn't just know for *having* torii gates. It is know for having a *lot* of torii gates. The greatest concentration of them anywhere on the planet in fact. These gates are laid out along a path forming a tunnel. Walking under them is supposed to bring you good fortune!

The beginning of the tunnel.

At one point the path splits into two (a sign says that it is fine to proceed up either side of the path) and we decided to go up one way and down the other so as to pass through as many gates as possible.

Liz trying to decide which way to go.

Inside the tunnel of gates.

Beware of Americans on the path.

Candiece made it out first.

We found one of those places for ritual hand washing.

Then we discovered that we had not in fact reached the end of the tunnel of gates. We were just at a little resting spot. Candiece and Liz went straight for the next stretch of gates where they proceeded to execute some wicked dance moves.

Yeah.

We continued down (or up?) the path and eventually found some very small gates...

I wonder if they count these in the total number of gates.

Candiece broke out some more dance moves.

At this point we saw a path leading away from the path of gates and into a bamboo forest! So we abandoned the typical tourist route and went off into the forest!

Candiece looking cute.

Bamboo and Pine.

Evan and Liz trying to ditch us.

Whitney being a creeper.

Evan discovers his true calling: mining "curry dirt".

Not entirely sure what this logo was from...

Bamboo Forest!

Then we headed back down the path to the train station. There we made friends with a very cute shiba!

Shiba!

Then we made our way to byodo-in, also known as the phoenix temple. This temple was originally not a temple, but a noble's awesome vacation crib. It is on a little island in the middle of a large pond.

The temple.

Off to Kyoto!

Alright. First week of November we get to take a week off from classes. So a bunch of us dropped money on JR passes and decided to take a little vacation to the Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara). I have a million (figuratively) pictures from this trip. To spare myself I will probably only be posting a handful of pictures from each attraction that we visited.

Here goes.

The trip started off at Tokyo station (the old brick one that is near the palace). We got there fashionably early and so I grabbed some food from a booth near our ticket gate. Delicious Eki-ben (train station bento).

Yum.

We had reserved tickets for a shinkansen (bullet train for you lame Americans) using our JR passes (those things are pretty sweet). Shinkansen, wow. I cannot express how badly we need these things in America. Sure we have trains. But these things... these are TRAINS.

The train across the tracks.

These things go almost 200 miles per hour. I felt like I was on an airplane ON THE GROUND.

Our train pulls in.

All of the American creeps.
(especially evan... what a creep!)

The attendant lady had this awesome hat...

I had a special spot for my shoes at the ryokan!

Candiece makes some tea.

Candiece is ready for a rainy adventure!

Kenshin had battles on this riverbank.

Downtown for dinner.

Delicious.

Since our train had arrived in the evening we didn't really get a chance to see any temples or other landmarks. So thats everything for today!

HA!

Sensei shows the noobs how knitting is really done:


Otherwise uneventful day of classes.

Ueno

We took a trip down the Ueno. Pretty fun day! First stop we checked out a street market district called Ameyoko (short for Ameyayokocho... that name is serious business).

The sign at the beginning of the street.

Just keeps going forever.

They had frozen octopus!

Evan impersonating the price tag... thing... at this sandwich place.

After a while we regrouped to get to our REAL destinate: the Tokyo National Museum. To get there we had to walk through Ueno Park (which is a fairly large park it turns out...).

Candiece in the park.

Then we saw these street performers with these freaky hats...

And I found Waldo!

Cool kimono lady.

Inside the Museum we saw some pretty amazing stuff. Exhibits ranged from ancient pottery (some of the first pottery ever made in Japan) to fantastic murals. There was some armor and weaponry too :P

Beautiful ink landscape.

This sword was presented to Uesugi Kenshin as a gift from Takeda Shingen's father.

Coolish: ice cream in a pouch...

The Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(this was in the park as we left the museum)

Like I said. Pretty busy day.

Roppongi

Today we took a class trip to Roppongi to visit an art gallery. Roppongi is roughly in the middle of Tokyo (almost directly between Shinjuku and Shibuya) and I was delighted to find that the museum was at the TOP of one of the tallest buildings around.


From the top floor we were able to see a *fantastic* panorama of the city. Facing south I managed to capture a shot of Tokyo bay:

Tokyo Tower can be seen on the left, and the Rainbow Bridge in the distance to the right.

After our trip through the museum we explored some of the area around the building.

A cool fountain outside the nearby apartments.

A playground!

A bizarre spider creature!

When our exploring was done, Gary sent us off on a bizarre assignment: finding and photographing "life in Akihabara".