yamaonna

Well, in late May, Lauren arrived from sunny BrisVegas to visit little ol’ me in the sometimes raining (its almost rainy season…)  Tokyo.

It was really great to have a friend here, since Im feeling a little homesick.  Im am especially looking forward to August when I can go home for a week, but til then Lauren left me some TimTams to tide me over.

We only had one full weekend to spend together, so I took an extra day off work and we went to Kyoto.  Kyoto was great, this was my second time to go and I can say I had a much better time this go.  Kyoto’s bus system has vastly improved for foreign tourists, now they have ENGLISH!  wow.

Anyway, we only had 2 and a half days to spend there, but we managed to pack quite a bit in.  We went to Kiyomizu-dera on the sunday, which was packed, particularly at the ‘love shrine’ by school kids.  And from there we walked down to the Gion district where we actually caught a glimpse of a Meiko (geisha in training), in her everyday kimono (aka, not dressed up fancy, just with her hair done up).

On the Monday we went to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which is this mountain covered in small shrines and heaps of red Torii gates.  It was quite striking.  We climbed to the top and ate lunch looking over Kyoto city.  And then got lost trying to get back down (but not too badly).  Not to mention both of our legs were really complaining by then.  We then headed over to Kinkakuji (the Golden Pavilion) and did some shopping in the shopping arcade.

Finally on Tuesday we went to Nijo-jo, which was a castle used by the Shogun.  It was really cool because it had nightingale floors (the squeaky floors) to stop intruders.  But they really do sound like birds tweeting.  After walking around there, we were at a bit of a lose of what to do.  Both of us had really tired legs (in fact, mine didn’t stop hurting until Friday or so), so we had to veto any major walking or places with stairs.  So we decided to go to Osaka, which is only a 30 minute train trip from Kyoto.  Once we got there we went to Osaka castle.  It really tall, so we were very lucky they they had an elevator….  Was quite an intrusting museum inside.

And then finally we went home…  phew, what a weekend!

Photos can be found here – http://www.flickr.com/photos/michelelisa/sets/72157600332750726/