Zen in Kyoto.

Back from the beach! The weekend was amazing! Could have been better if it wasn’t for the funny fact that I forgot to put sunscreen on my belly, and now it’s a shade darker than the rest of my body — lovely isn’t it? I tan fast, you see, heck, I get tanned from crossing the street! No, no, no, that is not a good thing… I get crazy tan lines.

I am also confined to the sofa or bed, because I have been having this funny (ah ah) pain near my left shoulder blade, that really comes and goes, but evolved yesterday, while I was laughing like crazy, to a not funny stab-with-a-knife kind of pain… So yes. Fun, fun, fun!

Let’s talk about something else. Kyoto. Oh yes.

After Nagoya, we arrived in Kyoto completely devoid of any will to do anything but stay in bed sleeping, but alas, we did not do that. We did however get ourselves a really delicious breakfast served in our room, at Hyatt Regency. The hotel was pretty amazing: spacious and pretty room, with a huge bed and an awesome walk-in shower. Also you could open the blinds without the fear of people seeing you half-naked — that’s always a plus.  The breakfast was incredible. We had a combined breakfast for two, with a traditional Japanese breakfast, featuring miso soup, grilled fish, vegetables, rice, etc, etc; and a western breakfast, with the mandatory eggs and bacon, pastries, jams, bread, etc, etc.

After our breakfast we took our bikes (provided by the hotel) and wandered around the entire city. It was really wonderful to get lost on all those little streets.

Sanjusangendo — a temple with 1001 (as it says in its name) statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy.

Sanjusangendo was quite an amazing place. The statues were incredible and all 1001 were different from one another. A very impressive temple indeed.

The streets of Gion.

the canal.

Our bikes.
We were lucky and found two Maiko.
And they were so cute and nice! They were posing with Chinese tourists for photos.
Japanese find this ugly, but I think it’s awesome.
Japanese curry from GoGo Curry!
Nishiki market.

This was a forest that was near a graveyard — or rather the graveyard was in the forest. It was the place where I got most mosquito bites in all of the trip.

Mosquitoes repellents are your best friends if you ever go to Japan. I bought a really good one before the trip, because once you are in Japan there’s no way you can understand or figure out what is a mosquito repellent in a convenience store. Trust me, I know. And you might even see a mosquito on the package and think ‘oh that’s it!’, but really, it may not be it (most probably isn’t). The one I bought was a good one. It advertised 8 hours of effective protection against the tiny vampires, but, somehow, mosquitoes in Kyoto did not get the memo — they freaking bite, and they bite you good. It was however good enough for Tokyo and kept me bite free all of the time there.

Ryoanji gardens.
Buddha.
Zen garden — This was definitely one of the high points of our trip to Kyoto. Beautiful and so so peaceful.

This time, since we went earlier than last time, we got really rainy days. Nothing that wasn’t welcome sometimes, due to the heat.

cruising the streets of Kyoto

street food at Gion Matsuri — and the lady at this booth said I was kawaii! Win!

Here I saw a man looking for something that I assumed was a little kid. He didn’t seem too worried, though. After 5 minutes, I saw him again, completely frantic. We walked on and found a little girl in a pink yukata crying, and we immediately knew that was the lost kid. Keoshi went to get the man, and once they reunited he thanked us a whole lot ‘sankyu, sankyu, sankyu!‘ — not making fun! It was his best effort at saying thank you, and it was truly emotional for us.

Cute kids!

They had seen me taking pictures and were giggling, instead of giving out the bags they were supposed to. When I got closer, they got back to work, and while one adopted a more subtle approach, not looking at me, the other one couldn’t help it. And then I thanked them and they giggled even more.

This can be seen all over the big cities. It’s awesome, isn’t it?

Hope you liked this one.

Have a good week!


Comments

2 responses to “Zen in Kyoto.”

  1. Estas tuas fotografias matam-me, por completo. A viagem ao Japão é daquelas que está na minha bucket list e que desejo há anos…

    1. Tens de ir então. Não é tão complicado/caro como se pensa. =)

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