Kyoto!

I met up with Claire and Cheryl today and we headed to Kyoto to see the changing colours of the leaves.

I've been to Kyoto once before when I was on exchange. It was just as I remembered it - simply beautiful. Kyoto is gorgeous. Kyoto is amazing. Kyoto is so culturally rich. Kyoto is breath-taking. Kyoto also has tasty waffles!

We visited various temples and shrines (many national treasures and World Heritage listed I think) and I got my first temple book (a book that you get stamped and written on at each temple you visit). First we headed to 'Sanju-sangen-do' or 'Rengeo-in' temple, where there are 1001 statues of the Buddhist deity, "Juichimen-senju-sengen Kanzeon" aka "Kannon". The statues were made in the 12 and 13th century out of Japanese cypress. The temple also houses the 28 gaurdian deities of Kannon - very impressive.

Next was the famous Kiyomizu Temple. I remember being there in 1997 and the same cobble stoned paths with rows of souvenir shops and eating places. I also bought these awesome shiriken ninja stars. So they're probably touristy ones but who cares - they look kick ass in my house!

The trees and the leaves were so pretty. There were so many people out enjoying the views, drinking hot tea and slurping hot ramen. We took heaps of photos and even saw some girls dressed up as Maiko (apprentice Geisha) taking photos. They were probably from a studio that makes you up totally like a Maiko and you get to walk around and get studio photos taken, because apparently real Maiko only come out after dusk, and Geisha are a dying breed.

And no adventure would be complete without some shopping. We hit the malls and bought these hillarious splited-toe socks (ninja-style) with stereotypical Japanese prints on them. Mind you, my last sock purchase were these cute little ankle socks with alphabet letters and random sayings on them. You could get:
'A' - adpt boy
'J' - jackson
'Q' - question?
'H' - hapipi girls
but I just had to get these ones:
'E' - Erotic Museum
What the?!

Just have to make sure I don't wear them to school because they love trying to read english words and WILL ask me what it means. I need to get some new slip on/off shoes because we have to change into 'indoor' shoes when we're in school. I've been wearing my puma's as my indoor shoes but it kind of looks a bit funny when I decide to wear a suit. But they're so comfy! and my work heels which I brought over especially for work just won't do on the surface, so looks like its shoe shopping for me. Yay!

love & I wanna-be-a-ninja-geisha
xox