2009
The Last 8 Months27 December 2009
The last 8 months have been a bit of a blur. Where did it all go ? I finished my project at Kyoto University in April and started the long journey back to the UK. Here are a few other things I managed to fit into my schedule.
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| Enjoy a final Hanami in Maruyama park | Finally make it to Gosho (the Imperial Palace) | View east from the south of Gosho, towards Daimonji-yama |
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| See Hanami near Harajuku | Get a last chance to meet up with Kumi, Mon, Daisuke and Yoshimi | Catch Takuya and Masami while in Tokyo |
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| Go to Chiang Mai for the Songkran festival and enjoy good music and food at the Riverside | Take in the night market on Walking Street | Go to Wawee coffee, but I'm not going to sit outside when it's 40 degrees even if they do spray cool water over you |
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| Awesome night safari in Singapore | Eat Nasi Lemak at the best Nasi Lemak place in town, thanks Lynette | This is what you don't want to do: find yourself wandering around Singapore when it's hot and humid |
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| Watch Richard and Barry turn 40 | Meet up with Lynette in London | Enjoy Chris Bond's homecoming party so much that you forget that you cannot drink large quantities of alcohol |
First Cherry Blossoms of 2009
23 March 2009
A sakura tree by the shrine entrance near my house is already in flower.
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Hidari Daimonji
23 March 2009
We went to climb up to the Hidari Daimonji but unfortunately it is on private land.
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| View from near Kinkakuji temple | View from Funaokayama park |
Too Many Tori at Fushimi Shrine
03 February 2009
I saw a photo of Fushimi Shrine with several tori (gates) and I thought it would be interesting to go and check it out. It turned out that the shrine is a very short journey from Kyoto so I decided that I would go "soon". After much delay I finally got around to going.
First of all, it's a very red shrine. Many things are painted red. There are also several statues of foxes around, but I didn't realise this at first. I thought that they were dogs and this was some kind of pet shrine! Then I found the path with tori, and more tori, and even more tori. But this was no ordinary path, it was several kilometres long winding over the side of a mountain and every step had tori. On my way back to the train station I found a stall selling delicious taiyaki.
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| Tori at the start | Somewhere along the path |
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| A fox water feature | Double gates |
Kyushu Break
03 January 2009
During Christmas I had a terrible cold; however I had already arranged to travel around Kyushu. Starting from Fukuoka I visited Tenmangu shrine in Dazaifu. In Kumamoto I saw the very large castle and Suizenji park where the grass and trees created an interesting contrast. At Aso I visited the 120 km wide caldera of an ancient volcano. Five new peaks arose from inside and I looked over the rim of Mount Nakadake (the active one) but all I could see was steam and volcanic gases with the smell of Sulphur. Later in Beppu I saw many natural steam vents and some of the geothermal "hells".
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| Across to Canal City, Fukuoka. | Tenmangu Shrine at Dazaifu is dedicated to studying. | Kumamoto Castle, one of the 3 largest castles in Japan. |
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| Suizenji park at Kumamoto. | The Aso caldera. | Mount Nakadake, an active volcano. |
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| Umi jigoku - the hell of the sea, at Beppu. | Bozu jigoku - the hell of shaven heads, boiling mud at Beppu. |