Off to Nara

Hey all,

I uploaded a few more pictures from yesterday.  They are from the temple we are staying in (six of us from the University are staying here while the other 20 or so are staying at Daishen-In, a different temple in the Myoshin-Ji complex). Highlights include our jacked priest, Taka, our meditation room, paintings on the walls, and the gardens of the temple which are really beautiful. 

I will be in Nara for 3 days without internet, but will be back with another post sometime next week. I hope everyone is enjoying summer! I miss you all. 

Temples, nightlife, rivers and vending-machine Sake!

The last few days have been unbelievable! I don't have a lot of energy to do a full post thanks to our first night in downtown Kyoto (and the Kama River at 4 AM), so I am just going to put up some pictures with captions. I'm not sure how much I am going to be able to blog just because we are constantly on the move and we will be doing a studio project soon, but I will definitely be keeping up my picasa album. 

So far we have toured a few temples and gardens, water colored on the Kamo River, swum in the Kamo and the Katsura Rivers, ridden bikes all over the city and walked through a bamboo forest. It's tough to decide which things I share on this blog because the whole trip has been so exciting. 

This is a room in the temple that most the students are staying at, Daishen-In. 

The buddhist breakfast served to us on the first two days was delicious.

Part of a ceremony that only happens once a year at Miyoshin-ji

Bicycles are the main mode of transportation in Kyoto. It's great seeing the wide variety of bicyclists on these roads. The style of riding is so much different than at home. It's a really strange, organic chaos on the streets. Despite the speed, the number of riders/drivers and the lack of proper bike lanes, I feel very safe riding around because no one feels entitlement to their specific path and everyone is very aware of their surroundings as they ride. 

No real purpose to this photo, I just like the colors and the funny character. 

One thing we can't quite understand is their process of putting completely random words in English on their bikes. Some of our favorites are "Feel Garden", "Parsley", and "Hand Clap!!"

The group swimming in the Katsura River after a long, hot day. Only Westerners swim here and it is really funny to see the locals' reactions as they pass by on the river. 

Wow Asian babies are cute.

The best vending-machine sake in town. It also doubles as a perfect water cup for painting! 

This is the Komo River. It runs right through the heart of Kyoto and is home to dozens of local fish, birds and animals. At any given spot along the river there are several bird species (cranes, egrets, herons and hawks) flying around overhead or fishing the river. We sat on the banks and painted here for a while, then a few of us came back for an early morning swim after going out downtown. 

This is a picture of The Time's Building designed by Tadao Ando. I don't know if I've ever been more impressed by a building before. I will probably do a separate post on the Ando buildings that I visit while in Japan. 

This place is fun!!

KYOTO!

Hey everyone! After a few days of traveling from LA to the Narita Airport, to the train ride into Tokyo Station, to the overnight bus ride into Hanzano station in Kyoto, to the full day of wandering aimlessly around the downtown area and figuring out the bus routes, I am sitting on my bed in my 16th century, air-conditioned, Zen Buddhist temple, connected to the wireless internet. Something about all this seems not quite real? Maybe it's the irony of the accommodations, or it could be the novelty of my first few days alone in a foreign (very foreign) country, or the new found adventure of traveling as a vegetarian, or the fact that the last few days were not organized by someone else so I had to find my own way around in a place that has a lot less English than I expected. Whatever it is I have had a fun 72 hours but I don't think it has quite sunk in yet. I will miss Oregon and already do miss Kaitlin, but this should be an amazing 7 weeks. Right now I am having an Asahi beer from a case that our host priest, Taka bought for us and looking forward to the rest of the students' arrivals and the program starting up tomorrow morning. 

So I wanted to settle in, catch up on some email and start posting pictures because I will probably get backed up pretty fast. Click on any of the pictures below to go to the full album:

All I saw of Tokyo while I was waiting for my bus. I will be heading back with Andrew during the 6th week of the trip.

The Hanzano Station after an 8-hour journey (7 of which I slept!)

The entrance path into Myoshinji - A large complex of several individual temples

A Detail of one of the temples 

The entrance to the Skinkyogoku Covered Arcade

Some of the food on display at this covered market

 Some more of the food

Pretty colors

More pretty colors and food

Old versus New is a common theme here in Kyoto