I'm not going to lie... we never planned to go here! But when we left the Golden Pavillion we realised it was only a 30min walk away and we were enjoying the beautiful Kyoto fresh air! So we walked there. I think our main thought (that was proved wrong a number of times!) is that we though if we went to see the temples that is really ALL we would see, well each sightseeing place had a big area around it with parks or shops! The autumn leaves were especially beautiful here!
At the top of these stairs is where the temple is, it was old and made from wood. We were asked to take our shoes of on the wooden floor and there was barely any noise, just the sounds of the wind and the birds cherpping, We both felt the Zen like feeling, and we sat and looked at the Zen Rock Garden for about 5 mins, we only left because we thought other people would want to sit down!
Now, I don't know what feeling you get when you look at this picture, but I can recall the sense of relaxation from when we were there and it is very.... reassuring. I think that's the world I'm looking for. It was indescribable, So we were pleased we went to see it!
Now this totally amazed me... the tree was practically dead and it had no leafs or anything growing on it apart from these 2 small peaches hanging from the dead tree over the river! Awesome!!!
After traveling for 8 hours from Tokyo then one and a half hours to Kinkaku-ji from Kyoto Station, we were soooooo happy to be stretching our legs and walking around and when we saw the beautiful autumn leaves, we soon forgot about the whole journey! I was so amazed by the colours... I looked at so many photos of Japan's autumn leaves before we went but nothing prepared me for actually how amazing they really are!!!
I hadn't told Fran much about the places we were going to go, I showed him a few a photos before we went to see which places he would want to see, but when we got there I just told him the names of the places we were going, so it would be a surprise :-)
I knew we were going to see this but... wow! It really was a great place to start, somewhere really special to kick off our Kyoto sightseeing holiday! It was quite busy because it was a Sunday, yet it was still so peaceful and relaxing there. There was a beautiful lake and loads of trees in reds, oranges, yellows and greens! Really stunning!
I was surprised to read that this temple had burnt down a number of times, and this temple was last built in 1955. The top two stories are covered in gold leaf. It really was stunning!!!
There were work men raking up the red leaves around the temple grounds, aren't they doing a good job, and the green ground looked like velvet - just beautiful!
WOOOOOP!!! So excited... We are off to Kyoto this weekend!!! Ok, so the bus is the way to go if you are looking for cheap travel in Japan!!!! We are taking the over night bus there and the over night bus back!!! I have been working out what we will go and see and do, and we are both very excited about seeing all these amazing places in autumn!!! And check out the weather forecast! Yippee!!!!!!
Oooow, Thanks Giving tomorrow with Dave and KT!!! Yay - turkey!!! can't wait!!!!
Well, it is certainly getting colder, but no where near as cold as England is getting!!! I can't bealive it is going to snow in Manchester this weekend!!! Everyone better be wrapping up super warm and looking after themselves!!!!!!
The autumn is soooooo beautiful here, everywhere you look there are bright yellow trees and occasional "extremely special" maple trees which are soooooo red!!! Honestly they are just incredible!!!
On the 14th November I went for a photoshoot with my friend Ayla at Nogawa Park. It was such a nice day, we had a nice stroll around the park, chatted and I took some photos of her!!! She was so easy to work with - a natural model!
The leaves hadn't quite all changed colors when we went there, we searched and searched for the red trees but there were only a few leaves that had turned red and the rest of the tree was still green!
Nope, your not seeing things.... that really was a lady running with a ferret on a lead!!! I had to get a picture!!!!
The autumn sky really is amazing, there seems to be an incredible sunset... every night!!! Even when there are clouds....
Ah! Our first tourist trip!!! Was sooooo good to be a tourist finally! Love it! :-D We had simply an amazing day, it was beyond what I could have ever imagined! (I warn you now... there are going to be LOTS of photos on this post!)
We got up super early! 5:45am our alarms were set, with the aim to catch the 6:37am train. We had to be at Hamamatscho Bus Station to leave on our coach at 9am. Which would mean travelling through Tokyo in Rush Hour! There was NO WAY I was going on an hours train journey to be squashed! As if I wasn't worried enough with the coach journey! hehe, so yup! We were still pretty squashed to be honest, but nothing tooo uncomfortable
We left the bus station at about 9:05am and the coach journey went pretty fast! We are used to the old "slow coaches" in England... and there was none of that here! Our coach was overtaking cars and everything! hehe.
Before we knew it, we were out of central Tokyo and heading towards Yamanashi Prefecture to see Mt. Fuji. We saw loads of Japanese nature and beautiful landscapes on the way!
It wasn't long before we started to see Mt. Fuji!!!
The day had started off very cloudy but by the time we got to see Mount Fuji the sky was beautifully clear! We had amazing visability! None of it was covered by clouds at all!!! We could even see the snow on the top! AMAZING!
We stopped at Mt. Fuji's Visitor Center at the foot to take photos and admire the amazing autumn coloured leaves!!! You know... people can tell you as much as they like that the Autumn Leaves are unbelievabley red... and you won't believe them... until you see them for yourself! I was sooooo amazed!! I wanted to take one home with me! A tree that is! haha! Ow, I was really amazed how far away Mt. Fuji looked even though we were stood at the very bottom!
We only staying at the visitor center for 20mins and then we jumped back on the coach and continued up the Mountain! We were headed for Fuji's 5th Station. There are 10 stations on Mt. Fuji, the First Station is the visitor center and the 10th station is the peak! The 5th Station is over half way up at an altitude of 2305m!!! My ears were popping all the way up! Our tour guide warned us that it was very windy out and that the temperature was at 2° so we put an extra layer on... which just wasn't enough for what we were about to experience!
As we got blown off the bus we headed towards the red torii gate, as we had been told that if we went through there, we would come to a shinto shrine and there was an observation platform that we could look down at the view and also up to the peak of Mt. Fuji.
Unfortunately, by the time we had reached the 5th station, clouds were covering the peak of Mt. Fuji, but you can see how much closer we are than from the visitor center!
We had a look around the rest house at the food and picked up a free souvenir, and more than anything kept out of the cloud and the wind! We headed back to the bus! At the beginning of the tour I had said to Fran I thought that being a tour guide would be a good job, but immediately changed my mind! Our tour guide was nice and had lots of information to tell us, but when she counted us after the 5th station, there was an elderly couple missing. She went to look for them, but couldn't find them. She announced to the bus that she couldn't find them and the coach set off... I was shocked, she was just driving the coach back where we had been dropped off. I saw the man and told the tour guide, so she went to get them, but was so rude to them because they had put us "behind schedule"! I felt so sorry for them... no one can help getting lost!!!! Hm... she was a bit funny - she had lots of interesting facts about Japanese history which was nice to have an insight into but then... she decided she needed to sing us a song... a song?! I suppose at least it's topical!
Anyway, we went back to the bottom of the mountain and ate our lunch! Then straight off to Hakone!!!! I hadn't really paid much attention when I booked the tour about the Hakone bit... I was too excited about Mt. Fuji to get excited about anything else :-) hehe. On the way to Lake Ashi in Hakone we saw lots and lots and lots of BEAUTIFUL nature!!!!
It took us just over an hour to get to Lake Ashi, which is mainly famous for it's view of Mt. Fuji... but we couldn't see Mt Fuji at all any more :-( we could see lots of other mountains though and it was beautiful!!!! When we were on the boat, we went all the way to the top platform!
This is where we were heading - Mt. Komagatake, the building at the bottom is the cable car entrance and you can see a small square building on the top of the left mountain, that's where we were going! As we got closer and closer there were clouds forming around the top of the mountain! 2 mountains in 1 day... that's gotta be unlucky?!
We all thought it was kinda pointless going up there if there was thick clouds but we had no idea how amazing it would actually be up there!!! I have never experienced winds like it!!!!
It was cold, it was windy and we were stood in the clouds....
Looking back at the cable car station.
Looking back at the station again... because it was soooooo windy the clouds were moving very fast so every couple of minutes the sky would become clear for a few seconds! It was fun!
Never in my "real" life have I ever imagined seeing something so naturally spectacular as this was (sorry for the bad English wording!)
The clouds cleared and we could see everyone else on the footpaths and the temple at the top of the mountain. But literally 5 seconds later, we couldn't see anything again! Very surreal!
We got called back, they said that the gale was getting too strong and it would be a good idea for everyone to take the cable car back down! So we were only there for about 10minutes but it was just incredible!!!!!
I am sooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy to say WE SAW MT. FUJI AGAIN!!!!!! this felt really really special, definitely a memory I will treasure forever and ever!
We had an absolutely awesome, incredible, breathe taking day!!!! And like I said before, sooo nice to share it with Fran and actually be a tourist! We got back on the bus and it took us to Odawara, where we were going to catch the Shinkansen back to Tokyo! So much fun, and only took us 30minutes to get back from Shizoka Prefecture!!! Amazing!
