japan day 8 -- kyoto: tojiin

painting of daruma

we visited tojiin on our hotel's recommendation.  (btw, if you want to visit kyoto, you need to stay at the hotel mume.  it was absolute perfection.)

tojiin was somewhat difficult to find, so we completely surprised the staff when we stumbled in.  i think very few visitors, particularly foreigners make the trek.  the journey was well worth it though.  no visitors when we got there.  we sat and enjoyed the early afternoon sun by the rock garden completely undisturbed.  the main attraction are the 15 statues of the Ashikaga shoguns (no pictures allowed in that section - boo!)

japan day 8 -- kyoto: ryoan-ji

we're back stateside and fighting some severe jet lag.  some pictures of ryoan-ji in kyoto -- one of the 7 temples we visited in the kyoto/nara area.  the main attraction at ryoan-ji is the rock garden. 

japan day 8 -- kyoto: Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion)

we've pretty much wrapped up the city portion of our vacation and are now in the heart of japan's historical capital.  we visited a lot of temples yesterday, each of which deserves to be highlighted in its own post.

our first stop was to kinkaku-ji, which we've visited over 10 years ago.  i can quote the pamphlet but it would seem very disingenuous.  from what i've gathered it's a buddhist temple and the temple is obviously beautiful.  but what i enjoyed the most were the grounds and gardens -- tranquil, mossy and serene.

plant on the left is japanese andromeda 

japan days 6+7 -- ogimachi, winter wonderland

we were in ogimachi yesterday and the day before.  ogimachi is way up in the japanese alps and is a UNESCO world heritage site, mainly for the village's way of living and for their thatched roofed structures.  the village mostly farms rice and buckwheat during the warm season and (likely) intentionally avoided the modernization that happened throughout japan.

i bet it's so beautiful when everything is green and lush and the sakura (cherry blossoms) are blooming.  it's pretty cool to think that many of the homes -- still liveable by the way -- were built hundreds of years ago.

i'm not sure pete can fit into that truck

no trip to the countryside is complete without totoro

japan day 5 -- osaka

where my homeys at?  found this sign at ame-mura

yeah, baby! that's how i'm feeling right now.  not really.  we're sitting in a drafty 200+ year old japanese style farmhouse where we'll be spending the night, but, interestingly enough, it has wi-fi.

so it seems that in japan finding things by happenstance is much better than planning ahead of time.  for instance, our hotel in osaka is right across the street from ippudo ramen (so good) and two doors down from my favorite niku-man shop.  niku-man is steamed bread with meat stuffing, similar to char siu bao but with ground pork.

i would almost call osaka our old stomping ground, except that we'd only visited once during our semester studying abroad.  nevertheless there's a lot of nostalgia here with doutonburi (one of the main tourist walking areas) and ame-mura (american village where they love american hip-hop culture and 90's gangster rap).

in osaka, it's all about street food, particularly takoyaki (savory pancake balls with a small piece of octopus inside) followed by okonomiyaki (savory flat pancakes) and perhaps fugu (blowfish).  thus a lot of the images here are of food-related stuff.

top down.  chrome spinning.  in ame-mura

for you thugs out there....

takoyaki at kukuru on doutonburi

fresh takoyaki

two of kukuru's takoyaki makers

btw, the crab moves 

we had to fight the crowd to get over to doutonbori

a little fugu (blowfish) action for the daring

plastic food to display the restaurant's fare 

glico, a popular snack company

the narrow side streets always have the best things 

a happy buddha and fugu display on the left and an okonomiyaki guy on the right

time to go to the hotel.  i'm tired.