Thursday, September 12, 2013

Sights and sounds...

Our favorite activity, thus far, is simply walking around Kyoto. There is so much to take in Kyoto and life in Japan in general that we often just give ourselves chunks of time and start walking.  The atmosphere, sites, people, food, and more never cease to amaze. Sometimes we see beautiful Buddhist temples and gardens, sometimes great narrow little alleyways, sometimes very awkward English translations, and much, much more.  This blog is simply to share some of what we've observed in our first few weeks of wandering.

Here are just a few images from our recent wondering near our house in Gion and from our day in Arashiyama.

Gion - These are all images from the streets nearest our house.  They are all ~10min away (or less) on foot.
This is in a small courtyard


Around the corner from our house - in the historic preservation district.




This is what Dina is doing during most of our walks.



Morning on Shijo Dori (before the crowds arrive).





The river and the location of our initial forays into jogging.








There are temples located everywhere, hidden amongst even the busiest streets.


Arashiyama: This is an outer neighborhood in Kyoto, nestled up against the hills.  It is beautiful.  We should add that it is also the other big tourist area (in addition to where we live).  There are LOTS of temples here and beautiful neighborhoods strung out between the temples.  Arashiyama is also home to large bamboo forests, which are just as cool as it sounds.  We walked 10+ miles this day looking into small shops and just enjoying the setting.






One of the small roadside gift shops




In A's defense, it was quite windy on the bridge.


Yes, there was even the odd rice paddy nestled in the neighborhoods.


1 comment:

  1. I LOVE IT SO FAR. THE PICTURES AND STORY BLENDS WELL TOGETHER. THIS COULD BE PUBLISHED AS A BOOK.

    ReplyDelete