Welcome to Kyoto part two! Here are my must-have pictures of the famous Fushimi Inari Taisha temple, with the hundreds of red Tori gates. It is dedicated to the fox spirits, like this one.
It was a lovely walk, and No, it does not go on forever. (just a couple of miles or so. )
Customize your Ema! My favourite is the one in the left bottom corner.
Like I said before, Kyoto seems to be all about cats.
Food please!!
They were so spoiled.
Running around like they owned the place.. or maybe they do? Not sure about the relationship between fox spirits and cats.
Climbing higher and higher.
The shrines got more mossy and deserted as I got further away from streetlevel.
So cute! Cuddle it to death, aww.
Fox spirits have some friendly forest friends to help them protect the sanctuaries.
You can buy a set offering for the spirits, with sake, water, rice and salt.
The amazing statues at tiny Sekihoji temple.
A monk/sculpter made them in the beginning of the 20th century, then an earthquake destroyed the entire place and buried them. One by one the statues have been retrieved by his followers, and now stand in this garden the size of a small garden. The faces are just fantastic.
Dinner with Simon (left) and Darren (right) from the hostel.
Karl (photographer) Simon (photographer) Darren (aspiring carpenter) and me (useless bum).
I love this poster SO MUCH! Look at the cat, doing his share by pointing out where the fire is!!!!!
At the tourist info they had the latest reports on Cherry blossom business.
Shimogamo shrine in the north.
The 'Museum of traditional Japanese Hairstyles' right in the middle of Gion!
It blew my mind! The whole thing consisted of 115 wigs depicting hairstyles going all the way back to ancient times. It was all done by one guy who apparently is a master and does the hair of all the maikos in the district.
I saw a video of him doing a style like this in 20 minutes, using an iron, hot wax, animal animal hair and paper strings. It was like seeing somebody doing bonsai or origami. It looked painful but the girls are 'full of respect' for the master.
They use extra waxed paper to keep it all in place. The maiko has to wear it for 6 days and sleep on a special cusion in her neck all week!
I also saw these very nice pencil drawings.
So pretty. So expensive.
Shoren-in temple with the giant trees in front.
The garden of Kodai-ji, I really like the roots.
Back in the hostel with Immy on the left and Simon.
Immy (also known as 'Dolphin') is from the UK and completely mad. We've witnessed her eating banana, yoghurt and fish together, and asking supermarket staff for a knife to peel her purchased fruits. (I think the Japanese are scared of her.)
Compared to her, Simon is just a little mad. Here he is using the remains of his glasses as a monocle.
Look, thanks to him I've discovered new tricks with my camera. Here an artsy picture of him trimming his beard with my miniature swiss army knife.
Kimono time!
First fashion show...
Simon doing his thing. He's really good, check it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/simon-prefers-apple-pie-over-banana-cream/sets/72157613470129182/
Photo taken by Immy.
YES!!!!!!!!
And look who I convinced to come along!
Hell yeah. The obijime (small decorative belt) weren't necessary but we sortof demanded them.
Then we went out to Heian shrine in it! We rode a bus in it!
(A small warning: from this point on, pretty much the entire album consists of pictures of ourselves, taken with multiple camera's and mostly just showing off.... proceed at your own risk)
Immy! Horizon, whyyy?
Us: ' Oh crap a cloud! ' Chinese tourist taking the pic: 'CLICK'.
Snacktime.
She thought I matched the taxi.
yes, camwhores, I KNOW. (Wait, it gets worse.)
Meeting up with Simon in the Free Cafe, a cafe where the drinks and rice crackers are really free! The owner, a big ass rice cracker tycoon, wants to teach young people that ' ... there is absolutely no relationship between economic development and finding true happiness in life. '
To us it means free snacks (Photo by Immy.)
And drinks! Photo by Simon.
Photo by Simon. Check out how crowded it is.
Photo by Simon. (yeah this gonna continue for a while, he got loads of great pics like this and I'm going to give him proper credit.)
Photo by Simon.
My new identity. (Photo by Simon.)
(Photo by Simon.)
Taxi! (Photo by Simon.)
(Pic by Immy)
(Pic by Simon. Duh.)
I love this one. (Pic by Simon.)
Notice the sign on the right. (Pic by Simon.)
She's CRAZY! (Amazing photo by Simon.)
Undressing.
This is what the underwear looks like. Much more comfortable than I'd expected.
We both looved the tabi socks, didn:t want to put them off.
Just chilling by the river. (sorry, more people pics but it's hard to avoid when you have 3 cameras! such nice toys.)
(picture @ Simon)
(picture by Simon)
Picture by me! Whoo!
Immy scaring the locals (seriously, she runs toward them and starts asking random things in half Japanese, and taking pictures of her hair.) (picture by Simon)
The million dollar shot! (picture by Simon)
CONVERSE AD CAMPAIGN! WHOOO! (Photo by Simon.）
Gion by night.
And here we stumbled on another surprise: a festival to celebrate the full bloom of the cherry blossoms! All the ladies from the Gion teahouses provided us with free (!) sake and coffee, wearing beautiful kimono. The place was packed with locals, just a few tourists and us.
Tuxedo AND Happi!!
They were so persistent! A guy with a red bandana and megaphone kept announcing 'Free Sake, Please take it!' like they needed to get rid of it or something. Needless to say, we had loads.
Crazy catlady taking Mimi for a walk.
The expensive restaurants across the canal.
Best dinner ever: a 250 yen bento box with free sake under the full cherry blossoms.
The rest of the evening was pretty crazy and involved French tourists, Immy imitating a Raptor (and scaring more locals), and the Okura hotel. Sadly, no good pictures, so you just have to take my word for it, or wait for me to tell the story in person.
Final Kyoto pic (by me!) Many thanks to Simon and Dolphin for letting me use their pictures.
