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Friday, October 08, 2010

Guillaume Visits: Kyoto!

Okay, so lots has been happening here in Japan lately, and I haven't updated in a while, which as usual means that I have a TON to update about! Before I get ahead of myself writing about the end of term and Guillaume's second visit, though, I think I should finish writing about his first.

So, after Hiroshima and Miyajima, we hopped on the Shinkansen and headed on up to Kyoto. And, as it was the first time, it was AWESOME!


The first thing we did was to look for record stores so that Guillaume could try to buy some rap.


Then we took a lovely night walk around the Gion district and the park beside it.


We didn't stay out late, though, because the next morning we woke up early to go see some monkeys and a bamboo forest!




The area around the monkey temple was super cool and old-fashioned seeming, and even though I'm sure it was a tourist trap, I loved it!
Especially the boats.


And the lily pads.


These lily pads are really everywhere in Japan, and, like with the dragon fountains, I'm not sure I will never get over how awesome I find them to be.

We had to hike up pretty high to see the monkeys, and the view was pretty amazing.


In the temple next to the bamboo forest, there were tons of amazing paintings of dragons.


I totally wanted one.

And the gardens were exquisite.


And, of course, it wouldn't be Kyoto if we didn't visit the Gold and Silver temples. You'll perhaps remember these places from pictures from when I went to Kyoto with Josh and Rachel.



Of course, the rock Garden at the silver temple was once again amazing.


Seriously - these Japanese people know how to do rocks.
And I was once again overwhelmed with the desire to jump over the barriers and roll around in the beautiful, green, squishy-soft looking moss!


After the golden temple, we took a little walk down the Path of Philosophy (at least I think that's what it's called), and we found ourselves at one of the coolest places in Kyoto. I unfortunately can't remember what it was called.


There was this AMAZING building with some of the biggest columns I had ever before in my life seen!
Then there was this super cool seemingly totally random wall.


We followed it down until it ended and then up a mountain path to where we got to see a beautiful waterfall!


It's still amazing to me that such beautiful, natural places can exist in what seems to be the middle of a huge city.

We ate pretty much every day at this delicious restaurant called Cafe Proverbs. And there was the river by Cafe Proverbs, so we went to play on the turtle and ducks stones they use to cross the river.


What else?
It was SUPER hot, so we bought super awesome fans!


And of course we had to visit Nishiki Market again, where we got to eat some delicious soy ice cream!


And we walked around the Imperial Palace gardens, which were unfortunately mostly uninteresting, and not only because it was raining.


Oh, and the last day, we went to an anime/manga museum, which was super cool and having an exhibit about sculptures.

2 things said:

Liz @ Cleverly Inked said...

Omgosh, That turtle crossing is so cool. I would have freaked with the monkeys. Crazy

Zoe said...

How do you do it?? Living in different countries?! I want to have lived in many places!