Kyoto
At the last minute, I decided that I was healthy enough to go to Kyoto on Saturday. What I didn't know, was how much effort it would take to actually get there.
We bought day passes for the railway, which meant that we were going to do the entire roundtrip in one day, which is a 3 hour train ride each way. Waking up at 6:20 to catch the first bus, I met up with everyone at the station, and from there we rode the overfilled train to Kyoto. Since there were no seats for the majority of the trip, none of us could sit down and properly sleep.
After arriving, we bought lunches to bring with us to eat at Nijo. The huge selection, and my insistence on buying breakfast, required more than the leisurely stroll through the aisles. So off we went to Nijo.
We looked around Kyoto castle, which consists of Honmaru, the reconstructed "main" castle, and Ninomaru, the secondary castle, but ironically, not reconstructed, and is the original building. Ninomaru also has what is called Nightingale Floors, which squeak to alert it's occupants of people trying to sneak in.
After Nijo and lunch, we went to the grocery store, which was the main purpose of the trip. In an effort to educate AIESEC members about environmental choices, especially concerning bringing your own grocery bag and using your own chopsticks, instead of disposable ones, we went to a grocery store that required you to purchase plastic bags if you did not have your own. It took us a while to find the proper bus to arrive at the store, but eventually, we were able to...go to a grocery store.
We had some extra time before needing to catch the train home, so we went to Chionin Temple, in Gion. Chionin Temple is the origins and headquarters of the Pure Land Buddhism sect, so we walked around it, and the adjacent Shinto shrine. We then ate desert at a small restaurant in the Gion district, and headed back to Nagoya.
The late night walk in the cold from the station the my apartment wasn't good for my cold, but with my remaining change, I bought a bottle of CC Lemon (the bottle has 70 lemons' worth of vitamin C!) and some melon-custard bread. And with 20 minutes left of St. Patrick's Day, I drank half a glass of coffee and Bailey's. The rest was finished this afternoon with a tuna sandwich. Not exactly appealing for someone with a head cold, but it was my only glass in the apartment.
I've discovered a few things about photography with this last trip:
1) I refuse to put up a peace sign in pictures. Absolutely refuse.
2) Standing in front of landmarks/monuments and facing all the people taking pictures is a great opportunity to ruin many people's photos.
3) I keep on wanting to buy a nice DSLR, but I refuse to even carry my tiny camera with me when I travel. My phone is much easier for me to use; I always have it on me, I don't need an extra charger, and it's the same quality as my current camera.
4) In light of the above, I find myself simply stealing pictures from other people that went with me's facebook/flickr accounts of the event, which saves me the trouble of actually taking the picture.
Time for some undercooked rice-porridge and The Warriors.
We bought day passes for the railway, which meant that we were going to do the entire roundtrip in one day, which is a 3 hour train ride each way. Waking up at 6:20 to catch the first bus, I met up with everyone at the station, and from there we rode the overfilled train to Kyoto. Since there were no seats for the majority of the trip, none of us could sit down and properly sleep.
After arriving, we bought lunches to bring with us to eat at Nijo. The huge selection, and my insistence on buying breakfast, required more than the leisurely stroll through the aisles. So off we went to Nijo.
We looked around Kyoto castle, which consists of Honmaru, the reconstructed "main" castle, and Ninomaru, the secondary castle, but ironically, not reconstructed, and is the original building. Ninomaru also has what is called Nightingale Floors, which squeak to alert it's occupants of people trying to sneak in.
After Nijo and lunch, we went to the grocery store, which was the main purpose of the trip. In an effort to educate AIESEC members about environmental choices, especially concerning bringing your own grocery bag and using your own chopsticks, instead of disposable ones, we went to a grocery store that required you to purchase plastic bags if you did not have your own. It took us a while to find the proper bus to arrive at the store, but eventually, we were able to...go to a grocery store.
We had some extra time before needing to catch the train home, so we went to Chionin Temple, in Gion. Chionin Temple is the origins and headquarters of the Pure Land Buddhism sect, so we walked around it, and the adjacent Shinto shrine. We then ate desert at a small restaurant in the Gion district, and headed back to Nagoya.
The late night walk in the cold from the station the my apartment wasn't good for my cold, but with my remaining change, I bought a bottle of CC Lemon (the bottle has 70 lemons' worth of vitamin C!) and some melon-custard bread. And with 20 minutes left of St. Patrick's Day, I drank half a glass of coffee and Bailey's. The rest was finished this afternoon with a tuna sandwich. Not exactly appealing for someone with a head cold, but it was my only glass in the apartment.
I've discovered a few things about photography with this last trip:
1) I refuse to put up a peace sign in pictures. Absolutely refuse.
2) Standing in front of landmarks/monuments and facing all the people taking pictures is a great opportunity to ruin many people's photos.
3) I keep on wanting to buy a nice DSLR, but I refuse to even carry my tiny camera with me when I travel. My phone is much easier for me to use; I always have it on me, I don't need an extra charger, and it's the same quality as my current camera.
4) In light of the above, I find myself simply stealing pictures from other people that went with me's facebook/flickr accounts of the event, which saves me the trouble of actually taking the picture.
Time for some undercooked rice-porridge and The Warriors.
posted by Onwi at
9:42 PM
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