mundanity 

shapes 

More Geisha, but in colors. 

That's it!

Thank you for sticking with me and my boring story.

19:27 -- Houkanji, oldest pagoda in Kyoto, taken with extremely worn out legs. 

18:33 -- "Ran out of caption", skip. 

18:26 -- Lanterns all lit up. Extremely crowded. 

10:24 -- "Maiko", apprentice Geisha in Japanese. You could actually pay to be dressed up like one. 

9:57 -- Walk. Oh, by the way, I just had my breakfast. 

7:58 -- Alley. 

7:56 -- Welcome to Higashiyama, Kyoto. 

7:47 -- I just couldn't stop shooting these stoned streets. 

7:36 -- Lantern. Totally unrelated, but I remember that I was quite hungry by then, but shops were still closed. 

7:17 -- One of the many older streets of Higashiyama, Kyoto. Again, those stones are really pretty. 

7:04 -- Passerby. Shops were still closed at this hour. 

6:44 -- I love cobblestones!! To the left are some decorated statues of various Buddhas. 

6:26 -- Kiyomizu temple, one of the main temples to be lit up. It was a little hazy in the morning. 

6:15 -- It was still semi dark, not a single soul was on the street that would, 12 hours later, turn into a super crowded street. Lanterns were already lining up by the street, all ready for the night's lantern festival. 

Kyoto Photo Story

I made it!!! It was a heck of a trip as I basically walked non-stop from 5:30 am till 10:00pm, except stopping for food/drink of course. Following this message are some photographs to tell the story. Blah.

冬の七色。

~Stream, bridge, Fujisan~
A different composition.

Mt. Fuji taken from Oshinohakkai. Clouds were already creeping up around 1100. At around 1230, one could barely see Mt. Fuji. 

The unexpected

I believe many of you will agree with me that there is at least one, if not many "unexpected's" in life. And one just happened to me.

So I was all excited and ready to visit Kyoto for the first time, with my full camera gear packed, heading to take the bus that will bring me away from Tokyo at t=2130.

2100 Arrived at the designated waiting place and waited for the bus
2110 Bus did not appear
2120 Bus still did not appear
2130 Got a call from the bus company
Bus left Tokyo without me

Great! There goes my carefully planned weekend. Turned out that I got confused with the waiting place, waited at the lobby of a hotel instead of the basement parking lot of the same hotel. I was so close, but being merely close simply doesn't do.

Life is full of the unexpected's.

To return the favor, I gave unexpected its share of unexpected.

Kyoto would have to wait till next weekend, while I woke up at 0400 and headed to Oshinomura (near Mt Fuji) this morning . Thanks to the unexpected, here are some shots from the trip. Enjoy.

Enough ranting for now. Did I say enjoy?

Beautiful Mt Fuji. Some snow last night made this scene much more appealing. 

雪化粧