Eyeful

Eyeful
Eye to eye with a Great Horned Owl.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

2013 Travel Dispatch #7 (Kyoto)







































We have been out to dinner and had our first sushi meal since we've been in Japan. Can you come to Japan and not have at least ONE sushi meal? I think not. As good as it was, we should probably have had more -- and may still though our Japan time is getting short.

As I mentioned, we spent most of today out and about seeing the sights, of which there are MANY here in Kyoto. The town is loaded with Temples and Shrines. We are now staying in another monastery located within a temple compound. In this compound alone there are forty-seven temples. We're NOT going to visit them all. In fact, we may not visit any of them aside from the one we are staying in.

The one temple we visited today worth sharing is the one pictured above. It's called the Golden Temple (for pretty obvious reasons) and has a more official Japanese name that I don't recall at the moment and am too lazy to lookup. It was actually rebuilt in 1955 to its original specs after a fanatic monk burned it down. The original was built as part of a shogun's home in the 1300s. It's also one of the most popular attractions in all of Kyoto. The place was chocka-block with tourists -- at least 90% of whom were Japanese and a large percentage of those were school children.

But enough with the temples. In keeping with the direction I pointed in my latest show at the Guild, I'm trying to pay more attention to people on this trip and not just focus on the scenery. It's not a natural thing for me to do and I'm not all that comfortable about approaching strangers to see if I can take their picture. But if there is anyplace on the planet where people have an understanding of the picture taking impulse, it's Japan and people here, especially near the tourists sites, respond very positively. 

So here's a small gallery of Japanese faces from today.





































And that's it for now. It's beddy-bye time, 10:30 on Halloween night and we haven't seen a single trick or treater. They do take Halloween decorations etc. pretty seriously here though. Gotta run.

1 comment:

  1. Nice stuff. Good work on the people shots! They're always tricky. Really enjoying the blog!

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