This weekend I went to Kyoto with Myrie and some of the other ALTs she knows. Surprisingly enough, Kyoto is amazing. I feel like we barely got to see any of it, but what we did see was great. There are tons of temples in and around the city, as well as a really nice downtown area. The people I travelled with were a lot of fun too, so I had a really good time.
We got to the city on Saturday afternoon, and met up with the other ALTs who were already there. Then we dropped our stuff off at our hostel (much different than any I have been at before), and then went to the huge park nearby. We thought there would be more to see in the park, but it was pretty much just grass and trees. We went to Gion district that night, and saw some Geishas in training, which was pretty cool. Then we had dinner and spent the rest of the night at a few different bars.
The next day we saw one of the more famous temples, which was pretty huge and made the other temple I have seen seem sorta like nothing. While we were there we approached by a group of students from Tokyo who wanted to speak to us for an assignment. They were very excited about it (the girl I talked to actually jumped up and down clapping as she left) so it was pretty fun. After the temple it started to rain, so we wandered around the downtown area for awhile before going to dinner. We ended up eating at an Irish pub that served the best food I’ve had in awhile, and had live Irish music (played by Japanese people). After that we were tired so we went back to the hostel.
On our final day we headed to Arashiyama to see the bamboo forest and another temple or shrine (I don’t really know what it was). This was my favorite part of the trip, mostly because of the bamboo forest. There isn’t a whole lot to it, but I had really wanted to see one and I thought it looked really nice, and much different than anything we have in Canada.
So Kyoto is a really nice place, and its only about 3 hours away so I have a feeling I’ll be back there again.
Here are some pictures:
September 25, 2007 at 1:08 am |
the bamboo forest looks incredible!
you should definitely go back again…and take me with you
September 25, 2007 at 10:52 am |
Fascinating! The bamboo forest is really impressive! Every place (except the Irish pub) looks crowded. Was it a holiday, or do you think those places are always crowded? Were they drinking that water?
September 25, 2007 at 2:57 pm |
It was a holiday actually, but I have a feeling it is always crowded because Kyoto is one of the most touristed cities in Japan, and it isn’t really that huge. They were drinking the water, because it is supposed to give you superpowers or something.