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Sayonara Kyoto...
Today we bid Kyoto farewell. The 3 of us - Merv, Gab and myself would be leaving the other 3 in Kyoto as we trod back to Tokyo to make our way back to Chiba. However, as our Kodama train back to Tokyo from Kyoto was scheduled in the evening (I think 5:30pm), we have some time to explore some other bits of Kyoto, return to the hotel to pick up our bags and then head to the train station to catch our train back to Tokyo.
While on our way to this temple (seriously, I tried to recall the name of this temple but I can't. so if you want answers, please refer to Bearbear.) **Oh... it's all coming back to me now... I think it's call the Kiyomitsu Temple (spelling wise, I'm not confident though.. I think it sounds something like dat... yes.. pls still refer to Bear! lol!)** we have to walk up a slope. At one point, Merv wanted a group shot and we thought, yeah why not. [Pics are courtesy of Merv's cam]Little did we know this shot was so tough to capture!! Lol. Here's why:
1st shot, most of us weren't ready and Merv wasn't in it. Lol
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2nd shot, camera slanted...
3rd shot and you think it would be okie right? Hahaha...a car passed by. Urgh!
4h shot, almost perfect but the camera's timer snapped the rear of a truck as well when a truck passed by. Lol..
5th Shot...FINALLY we got it right! Hahah.. lol. But it was great fun just trying to snap a group pic.
While walking up the slope, we saw a number of small shops along the way. There were many small shops selling souvenirs and food and I was trying to keep an eye out for Lay Hoon's doll. I remember her saying that there is a shop that sells the Japanese dolls at 1000yen in one of these small shops just before reaching the temple. So I told myself must keep my eyes wide open to spot it for her. Just as I was looking around, I saw a lady with her display of a few dolls and some other items outside the shop for 1050 yen. Great! I thought... this must be it. Since the guys said we would come down the same path later on, so we decide to proceed on to the temple first.
At the end of the shops, what greeted us was an auspicious red coloured, chinese looking of a gateway. The sun was shining brightly and somehow the sun rays added to the grandeur of the gateway. Here's what I mean:
1st fave picture of the day!! Hehe..
Group shot!
Individual shot. Somehow this shot makes me feel as though I am in China instead. Lol.
It turned cloudy all of a sudden and I thought, hey this looks nice so I just try capturing the scene. I love digital moments!! hahaha..Cos if I don't like the pic I can always delete!
Ermmm...One of the mini-temples/shrines before the huge one which was deeper inside? Hahha.. told you Kyoto was shrines, temples, pavillions galore didn't I?
Here, I saw some prayer requests (I'm thinking they are prayer requests) written on small wooden boards that were colourful and had many different designs on it. So I asked Fish to help me take a pic.
Initially when we first started out on this trip, Fish had some shaky hands and most of the pics came out blurry. We encouraged him to persevere and since he needs to practice.. why not practice with me as an object! hahahaha..... Okokok... I shall stop making myself sound so heroic. Prior to this, Fish tried to take pics with his left hand to see if they are better and less shaky than his right hand and surprisingly, his left hand outdo his right hand eventhough he is right handed!! Hahah...We laughed. And I teased him that he should seriously consider amputating his right hand.. hee hee.... joking mah!!
Anyway I think Fish's hands became more steady and by now his photography have improved by leaps and bounds. Don't be mistaken, I'm not saying ours is good but am saying that at least its not shaky as compared to just 2 days ago! Well done, Fish! I like this pic he took, I shall tell you why shortly.. haha
The reason why I like this pic alot? Simple.. cos I feel I look tall here. Hahaha.. Actually it's not that I'm tall. It's the roof of the prayer request is short, making me seem taller. Hahaha. Self-denial.
Okie, Fish tried to take the next shot of me. It was nice just that at that distance, I seem so tiny! (If you're asking "Where are you, Pris?" Plssss refer to the tiny me at the bottom center of the pic!)
I was happily posing when a professional spoiler by the name of Merv Kwok tried to come into the pic somehow... Hahaha... see for urself..
Then Bearbear joined Merv in attempting to destroy my beautiful picture taking as well. TskTsk...these people...shameless I tell you.. hahahahaha. In order to thwart their plans to destroy my memories, I said "hey get into the picture la... let's take a group pic instead". Instantaneously, they all moved away from the camera! Hahahaha... reverse psychology always works. Haha.. but we did take a group shot afterall. I like this pic that Fish took, not cos he wasn't in it. REALLY!! I'm nice ok! :P It's because seems like more people are really posing now (arms wide open for instance..hehee.. to take some 'crazy/happy' poses)
After the group shot, we ventured further to see what lies in store for us deeper inside these walkways. Before we did just that, we turned around and saw what seems like Kyoto city and the sea. It was quite far though.. I had to zoomed in on this pic and try my best to capture it. Didn't turn out brilliant but I guess this was the best I could do.
As we ventured further into the temple/shrine (I'm seriously confused between the 2 after seeing so many in Kyoto.), what received us was this really extensive and broad sortof a temple/shrine, alongside with mini ones. You will be able to see the back of this extensive shrine in the pics below. Some of the pics are my personal faves. Lemme show you which ones.
Monochrome temple/shrine (I seriously can't decipher which is which now) lanterns. Quite like it but not personal fave.
This picture below is my all time personal fave. I think I looked at my entire Japan pictures... nothing beats this (for me at least)!!
Colour accent time!
I like this colour accent picture!
It's amazing that the shrine is like built on logs of wood and seems like on such high levels too.
There... was telling you how extensive the shrine was. See for urself!! (One of my faves)
Is this China or Hong Kong or Taiwan? None at all... it's Kyoto, Japan!
This looks super Chinese or Taiwanese though. But wow, the colour contrast against the bright blue sky! Beautiful sight!
Wooooo.. .Jap monk spotted. Take picture!!!!
Next, we proceeded onto Philosopher's Walk. Here, Bearbear tried to smoke us by saying that we are supposed to think of a philosophy and at the end of the walk we must stick/administer our philosophy. Riiiiiiiiiight!! How am I supposed to administer my philosophy of world domination? Lol... From the signboard which was nearby, it said that the philosopher's walk is filled with cherry blossom trees and supposed to be a lovely sight as you walkthrough these trees. However, lady luck weren't smiling at us then and no cherry blossom were blooming. So we took a slow walk through this passage to go to our next destination - Ginkakuju (Not sure if it is right spelling but it's the Silver Pavillion).
What seem like half an hour's walk according to Lonely Planet turned out to be almost an hour's walk!
We stopped many times to snap the roses... I mean snap the flowers instead of smell the roses. There weren't any roses la... hahaha... But now you know why we took more than half an hour. I like the next pic. Seems very serene the walkway..
This is also part of my faves collection cos the red flowers are so pretty!
Okie, I found this plant/flower so unique and beautiful!!!! It's like the branches are bare except with yellow flowers... So soothing to the eyes.... I decided to take a normal shot as well as a colour accent one!! Isn't it mesmerizing?
Colour Accent me with mesmerizing yellow flower...
Finally, we arrived at the Silver Pavillion. To be honest, to me the silver pavillion was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe because prior to this I have visited and was wowed over by the golden pavillion so I was expecting more. When I saw the silver pavillion I was like "erm.... so this is it? riiiight..." Anyway if I remembered correctly, the silver pavillion never got round to being completed. But I must say that there are certain angles of the silver pavillion that made me take a 2nd look at its landscape and scenery. I'll show you what I mean in awhile.
Group shot at the silver pavillion. Oh yes... from the bright blue plastic shopping bags that you can see from the pic, you can also tell how many of us purchased the Japanese dolls. Lol. It's really worth it... 1050yen for a nice Jap doll! It's a steal, I tell you!!
Me @ Silver Pavillion's Garden
Sepia time!
This was what I meant when I said that certain parts of the silver pavillion's landscape made me take a second look at it. I fell in love with this landscape. I was so happy that when I snapped it I showed everyone to share my happiness. THEN, I showed this to Bearbear as well..AND the nerve of that Bear to look at my pic, asked me where I took it (I was naive to show him!!) and he whipped our his camera right before my very eyes and snap the exact picture!! URGH!!!!!! What a copybear!!!! Eh if you blog it, u better PAY TRIBUTE to me... hahahahaha... just kiddin..
I saw another nice landscape and decided to snap a shot of it. THIS TIME, I'm not sharing my joy. Hahahaha.. just kiddin .. by the time I'm done with it. They have moved on further down the path. Oh well...
After the silver pavillion, we made our way to another temple. Somehow they are beginning to look very similar at this juncture. Anyway I lurved the clouds in the sky with red as bottom for the temples. Another one to my collection. Hehehe..
I like the next monochrome pic of myself (hahahahah .. narcissis I am not okie!) I just like to play with the camera and see the outcome is similar to what I wanted. Some friends said this shot is very nice and natural. I beg to differ... Its definitely not natural... I was posing and I told Fish how I would be posing and how I wanted it at what angle and all he had to do was just click. Hahahaha.. Thanks, Fish!
After this, we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and bearbear helped me snapped a pic at this beautiful, magnificent red gateway....
Throughout the day, Bearbear taught us some Jap phrases or words like Where? in Japanese. I am not sure how to spell it but here it goes "Sumimasen (Excuse me) ____(Filled in Location in the blanks) Dochiradeska (where)?" So I was trying hard to remember these phrases cos I know we'll definitely gonna use it later when we 3 musketeers - Merv, Gab & I make our own way back from Kyoto to Chiba.
So anyway, when we reached the train station, I used the phrases that Bearbear taught us to asked where the Kodama express was located and we found it without much trouble. Thank God! And here we are on our train back to Tokyo & then Chiba!
Playing with monochrome...onboard the train.. nothing to do mah.. no personal TV. Hahah
Oh yes... Food... It seems like the entire day. I only had a bar of muesli for breakfast before I left the hotel and then finally what was supposed to be lunch is now dinner. Dinner tonight is semi western semi Japanese with sausage, buns, slice of orange and cabbage wrapped with tuna and yes.. Suntory grapefruit. I didnt know that Suntory was an alcohol drink as I just grabbed from the counters of the eatery before boarding the train. Took a sipped and I turned all flushed in the face. Typical me when I come into contact with the slightest tinge of alcohol. I passed the entire can to Merv. After that I didn't have much appetite and passed most of my food to the guys. Then I just slept.... like a baby... hahaha.. told you I'm all terrain sleeper. Anytime anywhere.
So that's all for today.... as we departed for Tokyo - Chiba... it's sayonara lovely Kyoto!! (P/s: It's also right about now that the homing device in me starts activating as I slept on the train ... I'm called a homing device according to Fish & Merv.. haha)
7 comments:
hee as requested..really enjoy browsing ur lovely pictures! and my fav pic will be the blue blue sky..love the contrasting bright colours that seem to make the whole pic more define :)
>Mars: Hee hee... thanks for fulfilling the request then! Hee hee and its really sweet that you said my pics are lovely... *Beams with pride for my baby!!*
Hi Babe!! Gong Xi Fa Cai!!I muz agree dat U do have an eye for photography! Great pics n U're looking pretty & fashionable as always! My fave pic is the one with the reflection at Silver Pavillion. Nice capture! Catch up with U soon, ya? - JP
Soooooooo many temples! Haha, seems like Kyoto is just full of em. I like the pic with the red temble and deep blue sky with clouds. Quite hard to get a nice photo with clouds in Japan methinks. :P
can show a pic of the doll?
>Tiger: Can. Will take a pic tonight & show you ya?
So many nice pictures!! hee.. yah.. luckily got u and the gang encouraging me, else taking so many crappy pictures is really very demoralizing.. got a good Model to take photos also.. hehe
and ya.. luckily got a homing device to guide us back to the dorm. hehehe
btw, u have a very good eye for photography, and good poses too!
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