Japan 2008: Kyoto Part A (08/18/08)
The trip to Kyoto was nice. The trip on the bullet train was nice, but lugging all our crap was not. We had packed all of our doujin and stuff from Akiba in a big box which Nur had to carry. It was really heavy. When we finally made it to our hotel, we were both incredibly relieved. We stayed at a ryokan, which was an interesting experience. I'll talk about that later. We arrived before check-in started, so we decided to find some food and buy a luggage carrier. The master of the ryokan gave us a map and a free pass to the Heian Shrine gardens, so we decided to go there too.
After lunch and locating a luggage carrier, we headed towards the shrine. Kyoto's architecture was a lot more... gothic that what we had seen in Tokyo. This is the Kyoto civic center, I think. Check out that gold symbol on the tower. It looks wicked, and like something that would represent an evil organization. In Tokyo, the city's symbol seemed to be a ginko leaf. I think I like this one better.
The banner above the door is for the international manga conference. It was just a week after we left Japan! Arrg!!
As we walked along, I saw this little river and the stream nearby it. There were balconies over the water, and it immediately made me think about the seventh Detective Conan movie: Crossroads of the Ancient Capital. Actually, a lot of things reminded me of that movie while we were here.
I took a picture of this simply because it reminded us of the Wario Ware game where you shove people over. I love that game.
This was a college. I kid you not.
Ahhh, the beautiful Heian Shrine. I took a gajillion pictures because my mom wanted to live vicariously through us and see some nice Kyoto gardens. I'll only post a few though. =3
I really love the contrast between the colors... red, green, and white. I think it looks so awesome.
There was a trolly car in part of the garden. I have no idea why.
Part of the garden. There were some trees in bloom, and it was really gorgeous.
My favorite part of the garden was this large pond with a bridge over it.
Near the bridge was a tree on some rocks. There was a blue heron just chilling there for a long, long time.
As we sat on the bridge, it started to rain, so we just hung out and watched the rain on the water. A bunch of turtles and koi came to try to get food from us, but I only had gum.
The shrine grounds were really big, this is just the back part of it. After taking this, it started to rain again, so we took shelter in the front gate. It was a little frustrating, but it gave us some time to just take in the beautiful sites.
This is one of the cult vans that were circling all day. It was sort of creepy. They would talk for a while over the loud speakers, then play some WWII-era music. Nur and I joked that it was trying to get us to join Friend. (Yeah, we may have been a little 20th Century Boys-high)
This was in a mall near our ryokan that we frequented while we were in Kyoto. This was a shrine in there. I loved the manga character-filled sign.
No bikes. No rickshaws.
The road to our ryokan. It was really tiny, but surprisingly busy.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't get my hair done here. ={
HERE IS YOUR QUESTION. Where are the pictures spliced? I'll uhh... I dunno, draw something ugly for you if you get it right.
I didn't mean to take so long to post the next part, work just got a little busy. The next post won't take so long. It'll be the rest of this day, mainly about Fushimi Inari Shrine. ♥