More pictures from the 2006 Kansai trip.
These are from December 30-31, both spent in Kyoto.
Click the thumbnail to open the full image in a new window.
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December 30 pictures start here
Kyoto Station; this building is awesome. |
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Me in front of the station. The building is really shiny and futuristic looking. I like shiny things. |
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Kyoto Tower Hotel across the street from the station. I think there is a restaurant or something at the top of the tower. |
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Another picture of the station's exterior. |
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24 Hour Hot Menu - Casual Frozen Foods
You can get fries, chicken, and hot riceballs out of this vending machine. Too bad it was way expensive, or I would have had some fried chicken goodness that morning. |
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On the way to Kiyomizu - after the mausoleum-ish place, the path along the way was a huge cemetery. Built on the side of a hill, you can see how many family grave markers there are. This was just a fraction of them. |
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One of the first buildings at the Kiyomizu Temple area. |
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More artistic shot of the same building. |
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Is that Mr. Popo from Dragonball Z? No, it's just a Black Buddah from Kiyomizu Temple. |
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Sweet view of a pagoda and Kiyomizu. |
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There was a small fox shrine within the Kiyomizu area. This is a fox statue. |
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Kiyomizu is nominated as one of the "New Seven World Wonders." Is it just me, or does their logo look like a bunch of people boning? |
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There was a Cafe DuMond in Kyoto Station, which is a famous cafe place in Louisiana. Blanchard was fairly satisfied with the Japanese rendition. I do have to admit, the beignets (like donuts) were way good. |
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December 31 pictures start here
Kinkakuji - The Golden Pavillion. |
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Another shot of Kinkakuji. |
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Shot of the back end of Kinkakuji, with some lake and plant sculptures to go with it. |
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This waterfall was pretty sweet, but it was very painful to look at when I had to pee really bad and couldn't find a toilet. |
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Nijo Castle was closed on New Year's Eve. Nooooooo! |
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I'm not very happy about this sweet castle with ninja-proofing being closed. |
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Side view of one of the Castle buildings, at the corner with the moat surrounding it on 2 sides. |
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Macroshot! |
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That is one long moat! |
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Kyoto Imperial Palace was very deserted, but I don't think it's open to the public normally, let alone on new years eve. Oh well. We walked around and it was still kind of interesting. |
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Just by chance, on the way back from the Imperial Palace, we found this shrine dedicated to the Boar. 2007 being the year of the Boar according to the Chinese Zodiac, they were setting up for some kind of new years TV events. I bought a phone strap. |
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My Chinese astrological sign is the boar. Woo! |
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