My last post was with regards to Saturday, but I had fun on Friday as well. I went on the Philosopher's Walk, which is a meditative path along a quiet canal and side street in eastern Kyoto. It was a weekend so it was a little crowded but everyone walked in complete silence, in awe at the beauty of the area.
It was definitely a sacred place and the time flew by.
Before I knew it I had stumbled upon some sort of temple. I threw in a coin and clapped my hands in prayer.
Somehow I wound up at Heian Shrine, which you might remember from Lost in Translation (probably not). It was a big empty lot with ornate, stunted buildings around it. It seemed to me like a shrine to the sky.
Finally I walked back into the center of town, getting vegan cookies on the way. This picture is for Cpl. Ethan. I hope he is reading!
On Sunday we had lunch at a falafel place near Cafe Proverbs. Then we travelled far to the south...
This is Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is basically an entire mountain covered in torii and is quite enjoyable to walk through, although it seemed to go on forever. When we came down from the mountain we were on the wrong side and had to walk around to get to Ryukoku University. There was a festival there much like the previous one where students got the chance to jump on unsuspecting visitors and hound them to buy overpriced food products. It's all in good fun though. Here is a Pikachu whom I bought a frankfurter from.
I also went to an art show by Ryukoku's comic-book coterie "Innocent". If you visit their website today you will see some of the pictures that were on display in the background of their Flash advert.
I hurried over to the Tenrikyo household and participated in their evening service; this will be discussed later. When I got back I learned that I was being kicked out of my bedroom to make room for a funeral; this will also be discussed later.
Let's try something tricky: uploading two different videos to two different websites. Which website do you prefer?
Philosopher's Walk in the late afternoon from Shii on Vimeo.
