When I was in Japan, the highlights of my stays there are... Not in any sort of order...
1)
My first trip to Kyoto!!! My parents and one sister came and visited, and believe it or not, I got to lavish my father with a meeting with Geisha at a tea house in in Gion! How did I manage this? I did some research and I found a Canadian fellow who does tours, and is the only foreigner on Earth that had the necessary connections.. Peter MacIntosh. It so happened that NHK even got involved with this one and we were part of a documentary! They bought my dad the chocolate cake. The Geisha were amazing, and so skilled in the arts. They danced and played shamisen for us. They are also experts in drinking games, and soundly kicked my ass. This is really number one, as most Japanese do not get to experience this closed world either. I believe that particular tea house closed, but if anyone is ever in Kyoto.. really... get a tour with Peter at kyotosightsandnights.com!!!
Later, we went to Hiroshima (honestly unimpressed), Himeji castle (really impressed) and then Miyajima (freakin awesome!!!)
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| Front gate to Jizoin... Oh... and exgirlfriend... |
2)
My second trip to Kyoto!!!! haha. Honestly, my first trip was so whirlwind, we didn't really get to see much of Kyoto at all. I went with my girlfriend at the time, so she appears in a lot of my pictures. The highlights of my Kyoto trip was Sanjusangendo and Jizoin. The latter being a small shrine hidden in a bamboo forests almost unknown to tourists, which makes it so quiet and peaceful.
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| Stock image of the inside of Sanjusangendo | | | | | |
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3)
Trip to Nagano and the winery in Yamanashi with my wife. Late in the cherry blossom season, my wife and I went on a bus tour of a famous park in Nagano to see the cherry blossoms. It was so awesome up there. I was using a pretty crappy camera at the time, so the colors seemed a bit washed out. Later we stopped at a winery on the way back and sampled wines.. and resampled them, making sure they were all of the finest quality.
4)
The Fuji fiasco. Ok... I tried to hike up fuji once. You do it in August from the fifth station, which is halfway up the mountain. Once we got there, a frickin taifun came! We ended up having to stay in an overpriced hovel to wait it out. Of course next day it started to break... but it just didnt happen. Perhaps one day I will conquer Fuji... but it kicked my ass that time around.
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| Fuji in the process of kicking my ass. Oh.. and another exgirlfriend... |
1) My first trip to Kyoto!!! My parents and one sister came and visited, and believe it or not, I got to lavish my father with a meeting with Geisha at a tea house in in Gion! How did I manage this? I did some research and I found a Canadian fellow who does tours, and is the only foreigner on Earth that had the necessary connections.. Peter MacIntosh. It so happened that NHK even got involved with this one and we were part of a documentary! They bought my dad the chocolate cake. The Geisha were amazing, and so skilled in the arts. They danced and played shamisen for us. They are also experts in drinking games, and soundly kicked my ass. This is really number one, as most Japanese do not get to experience this closed world either. I believe that particular tea house closed, but if anyone is ever in Kyoto.. really... get a tour with Peter at kyotosightsandnights.com!!!
3) Trip to Nagano and the winery in Yamanashi with my wife. Late in the cherry blossom season, my wife and I went on a bus tour of a famous park in Nagano to see the cherry blossoms. It was so awesome up there. I was using a pretty crappy camera at the time, so the colors seemed a bit washed out. Later we stopped at a winery on the way back and sampled wines.. and resampled them, making sure they were all of the finest quality.
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