Big in Japan

the girls really need this… japan is very flat. every now and then you can find some mt fuji but other than that….

so we went to kyoto a second time to see the golden palace. a group of junior high school girls caught me to make an interview with me. if i would have know how much fun it was i would have definitley shot a movie of the situation. i give you one example: hello- break – what is – break looking at the sheet – your – break looking at the sheet – name? and it went on like that. they really got into detail. name/ country/ do i like japan/ why i am in japan and in the end they gave me a form that i should fill out. name, country, peace message…. hääääää???? well i only have the pictures…. it was fun.

and i also saw the golden palace, met some kapitäne and my family there….

then to a place where i have already been before. hardcore biginjapan users already know the name and story of this place

and to this place where the built a 4km path of these orange gates. really crazy, but beautifully built into the forest.

i dont really know what to write about kyoto. i can just say it is a great city. it has many different facades. urbanism. japanese craziness. hang out areas. geishas. contemporary art. and very old japanese temples shrines and gardens. all in all an amazing city. but because of that also crowded. i am also a bit tired of writing because right now i am in the shinkansen to ogaki writing all the stories from last week in a row. now i realize how much time all this blogging takes. today i already spent like 4 hours on it without publishing. i am writing textfiles because no internet in shinkansen – actually unbelievable that they do not offer in shinkansen. how do they survive without… well they have their mobile phones.

so back to kyoto. the only way to enter the imperial palace is with a tour. we didnt know that its a 150 people tour. well this is no fun if you have guards that are telling you to keep close to the group if you want to see something in detail.

the gardeners are really poor guys. they have to climb up the trees and cut the new leaves. its not leave but i dont have a dictionary with me right now, anyway you should know what i mean. it’s the thing that grows in a tree. that makes it bigger and bigger every year. well and the gardeners have to cut them – so that the shape is not changing. because actually all the trees there have the abstract shape of a man with opened up hands to get some holy spirit.

the palace is nice, but i am not sure if i would do it again. probably not. there are lots of other very beautiful things to see in kyoto. afterwards we went to the silver palace which is being renovated right now so you cant see much. actually we wanted to go to the golden palace. but the difference between golden and silver is just G and K – so very easy to mix up on the map. and we found out there that the silver facade was just an idea and has never been realized. so it is not silver it is just called like that. is that japanese humour? anyway it has a very nice garden which is also worth a visit.

then we were hungry and went to the gion district. lonely planet writes here is the most beautiful street of asia. well i dont know. i think they got a really good service from the many geishas located in this area. we saw one as well but we were more interested in food…