Justine in Japan!

When: May 11 & 12, 2008
Where: Kyoto
Who: Me, Elz and JUSTINE!!

On May 9th, Justine arrived in Japan, bringing with her a suitcases full of vanilla flavoured/scented goodies. We talked long into the night and on Sunday took a trip to Kyoto. Lots and lots of shopping happened. Fabulous food and ice cream were eaten. Aaron photos were taken. Songs were sung at karaoke. In other words, it was a kick-ass weekend.

Justine is a huge fan of 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. I mean, this girl owns multiple copies of the book so that she can lend them out and still have a copy at home. So of course, we had to visit Fushimi Inari where a pivotal scene in the movie version takes place. After doing a bit of shopping (ok...we got seriously sidetracked by the underground shopping mall near the station) we finally made it to those famous red gates.



We hiked up and decided that in order to have the ideal 'Memoirs' experience, we needed to stop for some kakigori (shaved ice) with pink syrup. Even though it turned out to be a bit cold in the restaurant, it was nice to look out into the forest while eating our strawberry treats.

Next stop was Kyomizudera. Good views, lots of people. SO very sunny.

(Elz drinking some good luck shrine water)

For dinner we went for tonkatsu (obviously) and then headed for some karaoke. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a purikura machine but a great night nonetheless. We stayed at an awesome new hostel that looked like it was decorated by the ikea design team. The next morning we grabbed a bus to Kinkaku-ji and Ryoan-ji.

(The irises must have known we were coming and were in full bloom)

One of the teachers with the many school groups (you'll see in a minute) saw us taking an Aaron photo and instead of trying to explain to him that we were not looking at the camera on purpose, we let him take our photo.

May is school trip month and that Monday they all must have been at Kinkaku-ji. The place was crawling with navy uniforms, high pitched screaming and laughing, and students buying good luck charms. It gave Kinkaku-ji a completely different feeling than usual. It was loud and bustling yet somehow those teachers kept it very organized.

(Yup. Who is the queen of having her eyes shut in a picture? That would be me.)

Lovely, calm Ryoan-ji. Even with high school students sitting along the steps, the garden is still tranquil. I think I've visited this shrine about 7 times and I still enjoy sitting here.

Interesting fact: shrine food is really good. We stopped for some udon and it was delicious!

Next we took a series of buses (ended up waiting at a bus stop in the middle to nowhere) to get to Arashiyama, in the west of Kyoto. This area is famous for it's cherry blossoms/maple leaves, a river and a bridge. We checked out the bridge, which I had thought was made of wood but turned out to be concrete with cars zooming over it. We bought some ice cream (yuzu, I am going to miss you!) and did some window/omiyage shopping.




After walking around for a while, we decided it was time to catch the bus back to the station. We ate really good sushi for dinner and then Justine headed to her hotel (She was going to Nara the next day) and Elz and I took the shinkansen back to Nagoya. Stay tuned for another adventure with Justine!

(Justine, you're so adorable...and don't worry, your shoes aren't coming home with me!)