In Japan, seasons are a really big deal. I mean, a really big deal. There are season-specific foods, season-specific dinnerware materials, season-specific sightseeing locations, season-specific desserts...the list could go on. Anyway, since I'm only gonna be here for the fall and winter, I decided to join in on the season craze and do a little sightseeing. So one weekend, coincidentally the weekend before the week that we had our class field trip to Kyoto, my friends and I decided to go to Kyoto to see the autumn leaves.
These pictures were all taken at Kiyomizu-dera, and if you have been following my blog, I actually came to this temple as one of the first places I went to in Japan. In the first couple of weeks here, my host family took me to Kyoto and showed me Kiyomizu-dera. However, during that time, the beautiful autumn foliage wasn't there.
Since Las Vegas has nearly no trees at all, this is a sight that was new to us. So of course, all the picture taking ensued. After touring Kyoto for the whole day, we entered another temple to see the "light up" illumination at night of the autumn leaves. During this season, many temples will charge $5-10 for people to walk through the gardens at night with highlights of the autumn leaves and flowers lit up. It was very serene and scenic, but it was hard to get good pictures. They usually only light up the highlighted plants and not the whole places in order to emphasize the beauty of the scenery.
Bad pictures, but those are some photos of the light-up at the temple.
In addition to seeing koyo in Kyoto, leaves also began falling at school. It was super beautiful!
 |
| A path covered with red leaves |
 |
| Red leaves falling into the pond during rainfall |
 |
| Yaaaay leaves |
 |
| It looks like a postcard - Austin |
And right after all the autumn festivities, my Japanese culture class had another field trip...to Kyoto! But we were going to different locations and doing different things, so it's all good.
First, we visited a department store to see the different kinds of New Year's celebration foods that Japanese people order. It all looked really, really nice, but holy crap, it was SO expensive.
 |
| 30,240 yen |
 |
| But wait...41,040 yen |
 |
| Last, but definitely not least, 59,400 yen, with a box above it (not pictured) that's 108,000 yen! |
 |
| A Mario themed box! |
Even though they looked really fancy and really delicious, I can't say that I would ever spend over $1000 on ONE meal. But I guess New Year's is a really really big thing here.
Next, we went to Tenmangu Shrine, a shrine that is famous for its golden bull. Legend says, if you rub the golden bull on its head then rub your own head, you'll become smart. Many people come to this shrine before exams, hoping to get some help from the gods.
 |
| I wanna be smart too ;~; |
Then, we went to Fushimi Inari Shrine, a shrine for the fox deities. It's really famous for its thousands and thousands of gates. We didn't have enough time to walk through the whole thing because it would've taken an hour or two, although I really would've loved to walk through the whole thing. We just had enough time to get some pictures.
 |
| Scenic photo of Cherish and I overlooking a bridge |
 |
| Group picture! |
Lastly, we went to a little shop to make wagashi, which are traditional Japanese sweets that correlate with the season. Since it was autumn when we went, we made autumn wagashi. The shop attendants made it look really easy, but when we tried to make it, it definitely did not come out the way it's supposed to look...haha. But we tried our best (even though our bests were not good enough :'( )
 |
| This little green guy |
 |
| First two by me |
 |
| Shrek desserts |
 |
| Group photo in front of the store |
No comments:
Post a Comment