Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社 , Kyoto

I should run along the torii gates and reenact the scene from Memoirs of Geisha Memoirs of Geisha. That is the movie that  introduced me to this place, where Chiro run along the red torii and I vowed one day I must go there. Fast forward, almost 10 year later my wish is granted :) Along the way, we noticed that the torii is getting smaller and smaller and each torii is inscribed with donator's name and date at the back of the torii. I...

Nara Park

I totally went crazy taking photos of the sakura flowers here. Thank god that I brought my tripod along and manage to take lots of good photos of us together this time. It's a good place to have a picnic, walk around or just feed the freely roaming deers. And I kind of forgot to take photos of just the park itself. Comparing to my previous way of travelling of taking photos, this time I had more photos of us together and not just the background. For...

Todaiji Temple 東大寺 , Nara

Todaiji Temple in spring We reached Nara from Kyoto quite late as we decided to head to Fushimi Inari in the morning before coming here as it's on the way using the JR train from Kyoto station. As we took the local JR train, it took us almost 75 minutes to reach Nara from the Fushimi Inari station. We stopped at JR Nara station using the JR Nara line. From the station, there is a tourist information where we got our map and information on how...

Omamori お守り Japanese charm

Before going to Japan, I was unaware of the various types of charms or Omamori available from the temples and shrines. These charms are not free though but you can purchase which will be normally used as donation to the temples. The cheapest charm I can find is 300 yen while the most expensive one can go up to 3000 yen but off course the more expensive one comes with better packaging and embroidery. The charms covering are usually made of cloth with...

Kinkakuji Temple 金閣寺, Kyoto

Seriously I keep mixing this temple with Ginkakuji temple. See, even the sound of the temple is almost the same. This temple is known as Golden Pavillion and well, at least there is really a gold pavillion in the temple ground. But we choose the wrong time to come as we reached around 11am after the long and tiring bus ride from Kyoto station which took us around 45 minutes standing in a crowded bus. As we enter the temple, there were a...

Cathedral Cove

If you have seen Narnia, Prince of Caspian, the following images will look familiar. It was one of the scene whereby the siblings were transported back to Narnia from the London subway. Cathedral Cove, the scene from Narnia: Prince Caspian While our tourmates spend their time sea kayaking, our guide had to 'babysit' us. Actually we told him, we are ok to walk on our own from the parking to the beach and told him to go ahead with his...

Ginkakuji Temple (Silver Pavillion) 銀閣寺, Kyoto

Ginkakuji temple is located pretty near to the Philosopher's Path and after we were done with half of the path, we went to the temple. I was curious to see why the temple was named Silver and I was getting confused with another temple with similiar name, Kinkakuji temple which also called Golden Pavillion. Truth is, there's nothing to shout about the temple but it is the garden that is mesmerising. During the sakura season, there are quite some...