I'm BACK!

Actually I was back two days ago, but I had work to do for classes, and also I took alot of pictures. ALOT. OF PICTURES.

So, I had to spend a few hours going through them and sorting the good from the bad.

That being said, I STILL HAVE ALOT OF PICTURES. So maybe I'll spread the picture dump over two days?

Anyways, I traveled to kyoto with Cilian and three of her friends. They were all quite nice to me, though to be honest I may have been too chatty. (something veronica has warned me about before.) I TRY to not talk people's ears off, but it's so HARD.

I blame my father. It's his fault not mine.

ANYWAYS. Picture time. I have lots. I'll interject from time to time.



Oops, interjecting right away. This is a mcdonalds. Why did I take a picture of it? Because the bus ride to kyoto was six hours long. And we started traveling at 12:00 at night. That's right. Had to sleep on the bus, and wake up at six oclock in the morning. Also, we couldn't move into the rooms we were going to stay at until 7:30, so we lounged in that mcdonalds for over an hour. Good times, good times.



(kyoto tower woo!)







First temple area! (I actually came to this place with David when we first visited japan! Actually, same with quite a few places we visited in Kyoto. It was interesting reflecting on what has changed since then in my life, and what hasn't. Very happy reflections actually.

By the way, throughout this entire trip I was always carrying a backpack full of lenses and my rebel xti, so I was constantly changing lenses. Don't know if you'll be able to notice quality changes from my best to my worse at this size and after my corrections in Lightroom, but you might be able to from time to time.







There are people SWARMING in these areas, but for the most part I try and shoot without too many of them in the shot.

In a change from america, japanese tourist attractions are usually made up of japanese tourists. Funny thing that.





I love these little buggers. You see them all over the place at temples. I took many pictures of them. Maybe I will steal one and take it home with me.







people. yeah.



This is a very old mud and straw wall (from what I can tell). It has thousands of graffiti markings scratched into it. I really really like to think that many of them are very old. I love really really old graffiti.

Ancient vandalism just seems to make old artifacts just that much more real you know?






temples n stuff. (by the way, these places are BEAUTIFUL in person. I really need to get a better wide angle lens or something.)








MACROOO!!! MOSS MACRO!

Apparently there is good moss. And there is bad moss. Some temples tend to the good moss and make ridiculous amounts of it grow EVERYWHERE. (including roof tops. I have pictures.)

I really couldn't tell the difference between the good moss and bad moss examples they had. I mean, sure they looked different. But why was one good? Why was one bad? Moss prejudice.







ah... pretty happy peaceful pictures...



oooo. happy feelings gone now.

This was even creepier in real life. They were all moving really slowly and making strange clicky sounds...

So I set fire to the whole tree.

Nah, kidding. That would have probably released some evil bug oni or some shit.





ah. Getting dark out, time to head back to the place were' staying at. (I forget what it's called. Not a riokan. murb.)

Took these shots with my handy dandy little portable tripod thingy. VERY useful. (cheap too. yay.)





Ah, home sweet home. At just a bit over 20 dollars a night we aren't exactly getting queen sized beds, but I have to admit, the place was fairly spacious, very clean, and I slept like a LOG. (I also slept in the next room, the girls stayed in this one.)

Actually, considering how well I slept I very well may want to invest in a futon to sleep on when I get back home. Have I said that already? Well I restate it because it's TRUE.

Also the guy who ran it reminded me of the dad from FLCL. In a nice way. But he was totally quirky.

And thus ends...

DAY 1; KYOTO ADVENTURE.

I'll try and get though day 2 and 3 tomorrow. But we'll see how that goes.

INSTANT RAMEN TIME YAH!