temple town

Two weeks ago my lovely sis visited me for a little while in Tokyo. While she was here we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto for the weekend. Kyoto is Japan´s most popular tourist destination with its hundreds of temples and shrines, also a well preserved historic district to wander around in. Kyoto is also the town famous for Geisha, or Geiko. We didn´t spot any while we were there though. Although Kyoto, like any place in Japan really, is crowded with tourists, it was such a nice city break from buzzing Tokyo. We spent two days there and walked our feet off. We had superb summer weather really and it was lovely.

We stayed at a traditional Japanese Ryokan for the night. How lovely! Dinner was served in the room on a small table set on the floor and it was soo much food, local specialities, as every prefecture in Japan has its own food style, basically. So good. Lots of tofu, sashimi and vegetables. Nom nom. We slept on futon beds and rice pillows on the floor, as you do here. Brekky was also served in our room, and it was traditional Japanese as well. I must admit, I am such a porridge w fruit morning person, but as we knew what was coming, it was quite good to have salmon with hot green roasted tea first thing, along with some tofu soup and rice.

The most impressive sight was of course the Golden Pavilion Temple in the North of Kyoto. It is build on wooden poles above the small pond and it looks like it´s floating above the water. The two upper floors of the wooden temple are covered in golden leaf, so it is a spectacular sight when the sun shines on its walls. Truly amazing. The sun only came out for a little while, when we were there, but it is magical. Although as all tourist sights in Kyoto, this was as well crowded with people, it was nevertheless a quite calm and sort of spiritual place, as all temples and shrines are really.

an evening stroll

Instead of taking the bus home from the Shibuya the other day, I decided to walk home. 1 hour and a few photos later. I shouldn´t have worn my thongs though. My feet are killing me now. 

Here´s from Shibuya to Azabu-juban: 

last week ....

I was taking a walk around Ebisu and Daikanyama, a nice hip neighbourhood with a bit of a European street feel to it, lots of small French and Italian restaurants and nice little clothes shops, designer labels and vintage stores. It´s very close to Shibuya, but less the crowds. Very relaxing to walk around the streets. I spent hours at the T-Site, a complex housing a gallery, café, camera and bike shop and a dog salon, but the biggest store is the big bookstore Tsutaya, which is spread out and interlinks the three buildings. It´s really impressive, but the best thing is, that you can take your drinks from the downstrais starbucks and sit down to look through the books you brought to your table. It was rather crowded when I was there, so no free space, but still, browsing through the different book sections was nice, although most of the books are obviously in Japanese. I was astounded by the amount of international magazine´s they had, mostly the niche arty magazine´s. But they also had frankie magazine - luv! 

wall tattoo 

Denim store

Dog hook 

T-Site sculpture

Dog Hotel, Spa and Shop