11 April 2009

We weren’t meeting with Don until 10:30am this morning, so I decided to check out a temple about 20 minutes away from our apartment this morning. Most people wanted to sleep in, so I went by myself. It was really nice to do something by myself for a change, since all of us have constantly been hanging out. It is almost impossible to not get tired for some people’s company since we are inevitably together for the majority of each day. The morning air was already warm, and the walk was peaceful. The area around our apartment is mainly residential, and it later transitions into a more industrial district. It is still amazingly clean and safe, just like the rest of Japan. The temple I visited was called Toji Temple. It is one of Kyoto’s national treasures, so it was 800 yen to get in. It was the most expensive place I have visited thus far, but it was worth it. There was a garden surrounding a pagoda and two prayer halls. I was able to go inside all of them, and there were numerous interesting and intricate gold statues in them. It was really neat, and I was able to photograph at my own pace. Don always makes us feel rushed when we visit certain sites, so it was very refreshing to do everything my own way. It was a feeling of independence that I haven’t felt in a while. I returned back to the apartment just in time to meet with the class at 10:30am.
With Don, we took a bus to the beginning of the Philosopher’s Path in Eastern Kyoto. Along the path, we visited about five different temples and walked along the cherry blossom lined river. It was a beautiful and warm day, and it was probably the most peaceful area of Kyoto I have visited so far. For lunch, I ate some fried rice for 570 yen. We finished the Philosopher’s Path around 5pm, and most people were hungry for dinner. Since it was still light outside however, I wanted to visit another site to photograph it in the daylight. I was interested in visiting another one of Tadao Ando’s projects, located directly outside the Kitayama Station in Kyoto, so I asked Don for directions and headed to it with Derick and Seth. The subway cost 280 yen, one-way, and admission to the Garden of Fine Arts cost only 100 yen. The cost to enter the garden, though cheap, definitely wasn’t worth seeing the artwork they showcased in it. It was definitely worth it to see the architecture however. The artwork was merely tiled recreations of famous pieces of artwork… definitely nothing special. I cannot even begin to explain how amazing the building was however. Luckily, we got there early enough so we were able to photograph it in the daytime, and we stayed in the garden until dark so we could photograph it again during the night when it was illuminated. It was just a wonderful day, and I ended up taking almost 500 pictures!
I had leftover okonomiyaki in my apartment fridge, and Seth wasn’t hungry, so we came back to the apartment complex to just hang out and eat-in for a change. The rest of the night was spent on homework and photo organization. For everyone, it is really difficult to keep online albums updated since we are so tired after long days of traveling. Tomorrow I am planning to visit Nijo Castle again, to hopefully see the actual castle this time, and a group of us are also planning to visit the bamboo forest with the monkey park. Hopefully I can sleep in a bit more tomorrow as well since I will have project-related work to do tomorrow night.