Monday, September 27, 2010

It was dark, and I got lost in the woods

Edit: I got all the pictures (for this post) fixed. Rehosted on Imgur.com
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Konnichiwa everyone!

I've been here nearly two weeks, and I'm not really homesick. I could spend another two weeks here, or even a month. But, alas, my bank account would dry up and I probably wouldn't have a job...


I arrived at Kyoto today. The train station is HUGE. It's also part shopping center, just like every other train station in Japan. :P




There was even a little concert going on while I was in there. I could only assume it was in my honor.





And the stands:






On my way to the Hostel I'm staying at, called Tour Club, I spotted this VW Beetle. Pretty hawt!





I wasn't able to check in until 4PM, so I just bummed around the town, scoping out THA LADIES!
:|



I finally checked in about quarter after four and sat in the living room area to figure out what I was gonna do for the remainder of the day. There are a bunch of other English speaking folk staying here, too. Even some people from England. So whenever they're around, I'll talk with a british accent. They bought it. Hehe.




Anywho, for tonights event, I decided to go to a temple/shrine called Fushimi-Inari Taisha. There were a lot of tombs there. Kinda creepy.








Found a little micro Zen Garden in there







There are also a lot of stone foxes scattered about. The fox is considered the messenger of Inari, the god of cereal grains. The Japanese traditionally see the fox as a sacred, somewhat mysterious figure capable of 'possessing' humans.





Don't worry, I didn't get possessed. At least that's what I’d lead to believe. I might be possessed. But probably not. BUT MAYBE I AM. Or not. OR I AM.




Anyway.


There are hundreds of tunnels of red torii along the paths. Those are pretty cool:





No flash
















I even found an icky spider.






Eventually, the path got a bit more wooded and creepy.







There were a couple instances where I ran into spider webs hanging across the trail. EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EWWWWW.

They're in my hair, THEY'RE IN MY HAIR!




Lots of bamboo






And then a really skinny trail.








But that skinny trail eventually ended at a nice little pond.





These are some of the tombs that are scattered about the area











There was also countless flights of stairs. I think it's about a 4km hike up to the top of the mountain.



Endless stairs. I was pretty wiped once I got to the top.






Once at the top, there were nice openings to see the city.











With flash








Without flash






I kept on walking, hoping that the trails would just be a big circle. Boy was I wrong, and it was getting pretty dark.







Luckily, I packed my handy-dandy Mag-Light with me in my backpack. So that helped a little bit.




I finally came to the end of the trail and ended up in a small neighborhood.






I was pretty lost. I managed to find some building and had the receptionist draw me a map back to the train station, about a 1Km walk. Not too bad.


I finally found the station, got on the train, and headed back to the hostel at about 2030 hours. Woo.



(A LOT of things are done in military time, so I've gotten kinda used to it)



I need a shower, I think I have spider web stuck in my hair. It's all...weird feeling.




Night everybody. (Or have a good afternoon)


Tony san

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