Yesterday we went to Kyoto. It’s a really old city with a lot of UNESCO temples and palaces. It was really cool, but is apparently where all the tourists go… I hate being at touristy places, but it was still a must…

First, we went to Kiyomizu-dera, an ancient, historic buddhist temple. It was cool, but it was raining really hard, so I had a frustrating time taking pictures, and there was a TON of people. And not just people… tourists. I know it’s ironic, but I can’t stand tourists, especially in large groups. Here’s a few more pictures…

It’s actually a really cool place, and after you walk through the main temple complex, you walk through the “garden”. It’s not a garden as we think of it… Think of it more as a stroll through the woods. Even with the rain, it was beauiful. Afterwards, we walked back down the main street to find lunch. There are a ton of side streets that lead to other temples and monuments and such… like this one. We eventually found a really nice tofu restaurant to eat at. I LOVE tofu, so it was exciting. They have all kinds of specialty tofu. Green tea tofu, sesame tofu, … It was so nice to get out of the rain and also to eat delicious tofu.

After Kiyomizu-dera and tofu for lunch, we got on a bus to take us to the next place. Kinkaku-ji. The Golden Pavillion. I enjoyed this one MUCH more than the first. Partly because it wasn’t raining as hard, so I was able to play with my camera a little more. Partly because there weren’t quite as many tourists. And partly just because it was cooler. This one had a lake (as you can see). After viewing the temple, you could take a stroll through the gardens. These were even better than the previous ones! There was a waterfall! Let me add how much i LOVE my camera. See, it’s still pretty new to me, and so is the concept of having a camera that I can actually use manually, so I’m still learning what all the settings do and such. And in the middle of playing around with it, I ended up with this great waterfall picture. Maybe it’s not that great, but I really like it, and was super impressed with my camera. I’ve always seen flowy waterfall pictures, but never known how to get the effect… Well, friends, I’m learning… So anyway… back to the Golden Pavillion.

Next, we ended up finding a great little tea room on the grounds where we had green tea with a little snack… Now, it was slightly unintentional that we ended up having tea… Let me explain… It seems, in every country I visit, I always come across some creepers… and more times than not, the creepers are other english-speakers. Name a country and I can tell you at least one story. But why me? I don’t understand. I guess it just goes along with the fact that my life is filled with awkward encounters of all kinds. I mean, maybe if I was dressed really sexy or something and asking for attention I could understand, but no. Never the case…

So, Yukiko and I are walking along following the path in the Golden Pavillion. Although it’s not absurdly crowded, there’s still a good number of people. I like to listen to people’s accents and languages to try and guess where people are from. I was also checkin out people’s t-shirts, since there were a lot of Americans, seeing if there was anyone with a Texas A&M shirt or some commonality. Although I generally hate tourists, it’s always kind of fun meeting other english-speakers in places where that is the minority. So, anyway. As we continue to walk, with our eyes and ears open, I heard 2 boys speaking english. I looked twice because their accent sounded southern. They couldn’t have been older than me. Around the same age – maybe. But I’m bad at guessing age. Well, one made eye contact with me, nothing weird or out of the ordinary, so I smiled a quick more-than-russian but less-than-texan smile and continued walking on my way… 

50 feet later, I stopped to try and get a picture of a pine tree with water droplets on its needles. As I attempted to be photographic, I saw through my peripheral vision, the boys pause a few feet from us… watching as I tried to take a picture. Ok. A little strange. But I figured there must have been something in the distance worth looking at that lined up with where I was standing. So I just minded my own business until I got the picture that I wanted and until most other people had moved on. As Yukiko and I proceeded down the path and turned a corner to go up some wooden steps, there were those 2 guys again, standing, looking our direction. “Weird,” I thought to myself… and kept walking. But I noticed that they again started walking when they saw we were in close proximity. Cooincidence I’m sure. “Lauren, get over yourself. Seriously. And stop being paranoid or arrogant or whatever it is you’re being. It’s just a cooincidence and you’re making too much of it,” I told myself. But as we kept going, I just had this weird feeling that they WERE ‘following’ us. Not necessarily in a creepy, I-need-to-call-security kind of way, but more of a which-tree-can-we-duck-behind-until-they’re-out-of-sight kind of way. I stopped twice in random places to “take a picture” to see if they were really waiting up for us, and sure enough, each time… We stop. They stop. We go. They go. Um, creepy. But whatever, I’ll live. When we got to the waterfall, I was messing with different settings on my camera so much that we stood there quite a while… and by the time I was done taking pictures, I figured they would have given up and moved on. As we walked, we didn’t see them… But oh wait. Alas, they WERE waiting right around the corner. I paused again, waiting for them to walk on. And mentioned to Yukiko that they were creeping me out. She said she hadn’t noticed. So, we kept walking…

As we turned the next corner, and climbed some more steps up to the Sunrise Tea Room, I saw those dumb boys again. One’s back was to us as he leaned against a fence peering down over the landscape, and the other was facing us. I hoped we could quickly and quietly pass by. Yukiko noticed them this time. I put on my Russian mentality, don’t look at people, don’t smile at people, and looked down at the grown as we walked by… I guess hoping that if my eyes couldn’t see someone, maybe they wouldn’t see me. haha. So, as we passed, we both heard the one say to the other “It’s times like these you wish you had your camcorder. Oh, she’s right behind you… “. What?! I’m guessing those were 2 unrelated topics. But seriously?! What creepers. And people wonder why I’m often cynical and skeptical regarding males and why I generally don’t trust guys as a whole. Here you have a top reason. Don’t be an idiot.

So, anyway, rather than stand and listen to the explanation of the sunrise tea room by an english attendant while also having these creepers in my view, I’m like “hey Yococo (Yukiko’s nickname), can we go right now, please?” So we go. And we pass a sign for Tea. 500 yen for green tea and a little tea snack. This way –> That’s between $5 and $6. Normally, I wouldn’t have paid that much for tea, but under the circumstances, it seemed like a good idea.

Needless to say, it ended up being a GREAT idea. For one, we lost those creepers. Two, I love tea. Three, it was nice to get out of the rain.

So, basically, when you go in, you take off your shoes. I love doing that. It makes the floor seem so much cleaner, cuz no one is tracking in mud and dirt. Next, you bow before drinking the tea. Then you turn your cup twice clockwise. Then drink it with both hands… like in the picture. They also served us a little snack. The outside was made of sugar and the inside was filled with sweet black beans. Delicious. It reminded me of Korean rice cakes.

Now, here’s my favorite part of the day…

Yukiko dressed American with her Texas A&M t-shirt and tennis shoes, and I dressed Japanese with my cool new shorts and tights and Yukiko’s shoes. As you can see, she’s got the gig em’ sign and I’ve got the sign that every Asian makes in pictures 😛 So anyway… There you have it. Kyoto in a nutshell.

There’s more pictures on facebook, so you should check them out!