Sep
5
The Western Capital
Filed Under Newspost
Friday. The dreadful day during which the results of the Japanese placement tests were supposed to be announced. Instead of caring about what the results might have been, the vast majority of international students had signed up for a tour to Kyoto, organized by zealous Kansai Gaidai freshmen. At around 2pm, the front of the CIE office became filled with local and foreign students as the CIE staff made a tremendous effort in trying to form mixed nationality groups that could venture into Kyoto. I ended up in a group with fellow exchange student Will, his cute speaking partner and her two cute friends. Winned. The train trip to Kyoto was quite interesting, as we constantly had to adjust our speaking voice to Japanese norms (~0 decibels) while in the middle of a calm conversation.
There was no way to see a prominent part of Kyoto in one afternoon so we settled for what we had time for. We walked through the Gion district, visited Kennin-ji, the oldest Zen temple in Japan, ate some noodles and walked to the top of the hill to get enthralled by the Buddhist temple of Kiyomizu-dera. We never entered the temple itself, but even the outside view was impressive. It will probably do the temple no good no matter how much I praise it verbally, so here is a small cavalcade of photos I took while in Kyoto.
Streets of Gion
Kennin-ji garden
Comic relief
Twin Dragons at Kennin-ji
Top of the hill
Temple entrance
A welcome party was being organized to exchange students in the evening but due to the early curfew and the party place measuring about 20 square meters there was only limited fun to be had.
-Antti