Mini Kyoto trip Part 4 --- 2nd day-2 Toh temple

After Nishi-hongan temple, I went to Toh temple. It is also a World Heritage site.


There were only a few people as well as Nishi-hongan temple. Toh is very famous and known for its five-story pagoda. I wondered why there are few people. But it was best!


In the very wide beautiful garden, there are the five-story pagoda, some halls which are national treasures or national important cultural assets and so on.
Very beautiful! Look!!





Those scenes reminded me of my visit here when I was a student.

Oops! At the moment, my camera ran out of battery.
But, actually places I would see after that were all where photography was prohibited because of national treasures or national important cultural assets. Hmm... I wondered my camera had known that. Running out of battery was good timing. My camera worked until I needed it. Good job!

I entered some halls. There were many national treasures and so on. I reinforced the reality that Buddhism was from India.

The last in Toh temple was Kanchi-in. You can see old traditional Japanese house style. Beautiful garden which has meanings, living room, tea room, drawing room and so on.

I was really good to come to Toh temple. I recommend it strongly. You can see and feel atmosphere of all aspect of old traditional Japan just in there.

I had one feeling at there. It was often said in Japanese, but I don't know its English. Probably nothing. Direct translation is "I feel my heart is washed." I really felt it and said this sentence in my heart repeatedly in Kanchi-in. Then I found one hanging scroll. Surprisingly 2-kanji which means "my heart is washed" was written in the hanging scroll. What a coincidence!!

After all my sightseeing, I walked to Kyoto station. My legs were almost dying. It was good choice to go around Kyoto station that day instead of Suzumushi temple. If I had gone to Suzumushi temple, my legs would have run out of energy on the way, and I couldn't have seen Toh temple. Good choice!!

I want to visit Toh temple again when I come to Kyoto next time.

Mini Kyoto trip Part 3 --- 2nd day-1 Nishi-hongan temple

Next day, I was mulling which area I go. Before I came to Kyoto, I thought going to Suzumushi temple. But it is a bit far from Kyoto station, and according to a taxi driver, it is very very crowded.

I decided to go temples near Kyoto station. At first, Nishi-hongan temple.


This is Nishi-hongan temple which is a World Heritage site. There were few people around there, although Saturday. It was a far cry from Kiyomizu temple.


The entrance.


Going to inside, there were only a few people. I think this is the way temples should be. You can feel real temple's atmosphere.

Mini Kyoto trip Part 2 --- 1st day-2 Around Gion etc

After Kiyomizu temple, we tried to get to Yasaka shrine. On the way to the shrine...


Look! It is not a back lot of samurai drama. It's normal house. Wow! There are many houses like that in Kyoto. I feel as if I time-trip.


Maiko or Geiko. They are going to work.


Before we get to Yasaka shrine, we ran into this temple. Although it is in neighborhood of my friend, he said he hadn't seen and didn't know it. According to the guidebook, its name is Kennin temple and it seems to be famous. It was built in 1202 in imitation of one Chinese temple.


We finally arrived at Yasaka temple. It already got dark. This main building is a national important cultural asset. Gion festival at this shrine in summer is very famous.



After leaving from Yasaka shrine, we ran into this illuminated temple. Beautiful! I checked a map. It was Chion-in which is very very famous. We didn't intend to come to here, but it was very nice to encounter this beautiful Chion-in. Sorry but these photos cannot show its real fineness.


We walked and walked all day that day. Then we walked to downtown Kyoto.


Above photos are typical traditional Kyoto style restaurants. Those open on a river. What a nice atmosphere! But those are expensive. I want to come to one of them sometime.


My friend took me Ponto-cho. It is the street filled with Kyoto atmosphere, representing the evening in Kyoto. There are many kyoto-style restaurants on both side of this very narrow street. We tried to find a good restaurant but... there were TOO many people in Kyoto that day. Almost all of the restaurants were full, and long lines. We had already walked a lot to see temples and shrines, but we had to continue to walk to find a restaurant. Walking, walking, but we couldn't find. So in the meantime, we went to an Irish pub. We had a tipple and played foosball. It was the first time for me to play it. Hmm... a bit difficult.

Then we went to Ponto-cho again and tried to find a restaurant... but... we couldn't. We ended up going to izakaya. My legs were very tired because of walking too much and I couldn't walk fast any more.

After that, we met my friend's friend at the Irish pub, and we played foosball again. I was excited!!

After coming back to my hotel, I massaged my legs in a bath. Thank you for too long walking all day, dear my legs. haha.

Thanks to my friend, I really enjoyed Kyoto. (and even foosball. haha) Thank you my friend!

Mini Kyoto trip Part 1 --- 1st day-1 Kiyomizu temple

I went on an overnight trip to Kyoto. I chose the top season of autumn leaves so it was hard to book a hotel. I could find one hotel with difficulty. But according to news, autumn leaves season in Kyoto was very late this year. Oh, no!

I left Tokyo station around 9:00am. The station was very crowded because of three-day weekend.

I arrived at Kyoto station around 11:30am and went to my hotel. My friend who lives in Kyoto came to the hotel to pick me up.

We left for Kiyomizu temple first. We took a taxi but the taxi didn't move because a road to Kiyomizu temple was very crowded. So we got off the taxi on the way.

This is the street to Kiyomizu temple. Too many people!! My friend told me many souvenir shops on both sides of this street had a lot of samples, and we ate those, such as Yatsuhashi which was Kyoto's famous sweet food and Japanese pickles.


My Picture in front of Kiyomizu temple. Kiyomizu temple is a World Heritage site.


She is meeting many tourists' request to take a picture with them.


Let's go inside of Kiyomizu temple.


Three-story pagoda which is a national important cultural assets


I was worried about late autumn leaves. But it was pretty good. It was beautiful.


Really beautifu------l!!!


Really really beautiful!! And really too many people.


There was Momiji (autumn leaves) festival at Jishu shrine in kiyomizu temple. This shrine is famous for love knot so many young girls came.





Me with a beautiful scene in the background. Actually I was with my friend in this photo. But I don't ask him whether I can put his photo on my blog so I trimmed away his part.


This is Otowa waterfall in Kiyomizu temple. You have to stand in lo--ng line to reach the fall. People on front of the photo are in the middle of the line. Can you believe it?


On the way back. We didn't move because of many people. Too many people. I know Kiyomizu temple is one of the most popular temple for sightseeing. But... too many. People were saying that they haven't seen such a crowded Kiyomizu temple.

Try to blow the gloom

I will go to Kyoto next weekend. My friend lives in Kyoto and I will meet him too. I'm looking for that.

OK, I arrange the plan of my mini-trip to Kyoto and try to blow my gloomy feeling!

GLOOMY

I'm depressed very much. The cause is my laziness. I'm really disgusted with my terrible laziness.

Self-hatred.

And what is worse, some people informed things that annoyed me.

Sigh...

Report Card

6 months has passed since I started going to the English conversation school. And I received an assessment. It's like the report card. How many years have passed since I received the report card? haha.

According to the assessment, my English level has improved a bit. A bit. And my weakest is listening as ever. That's to be expected.

The assessment is with recommendations from my teachers. In accordance with those, I will replan my English study.

Romanian cuisine

I found a Romanian restaurant in my neighborhood. Romanian food?

There are various kind of restaurants in Tokyo. Probably there is no food we cannot eat in Tokyo. But Romanian restaurant is very rare. I don't know what is Romanian food and had never eaten it.

I went to the restaurant to have lunch. It was garnished with many folk goods, all staff were not Japanese (I don't know if they are Romanians though), BGM sounded folk music (I'm not sure it though).

I ordered "Friptura de porc la gratar cu legume". Price is 1,000yen which is an average lunch fee in the center of Tokyo, but VERY big portion. Salad, soup with a lot of vegetables (only the soup was enough for me), bread and large main dish! So 1,000yen is very reasonable. But it was too much for me. So at first I thought I shouldn't have eaten bread, but the bread seemed to be a bit different from others, such as French bread, so I tried to eat it, my tummy was very full though. It was high density and moist. I wonder it is Romanian bread?

After finishing eating main dish, I was full to burst and waiting a cup of coffee. Before coffee, unexpectedly cake was served. What!? I love sweet food... but...

Of course I ate the cake. hehe.

I found other dishes I wanted to eat next time, but I wonder if I can eat too big dishes again.

Christmas season has come.

Starbucks have already decorated their shops and started Christmas menu.

I tried to order one of them, "Creme Brule Latte".

Soon after the Halloween, Christmas decoration starts throughout the town in Japan.

Finally, Christmas season has come. It is a pity that Autumn I like will finish soon, but I'm excited to be able to see beautiful Christmas illuminations!

Feeling something

Suddenly, I felt kind of melancholy or dreary a little. I wonder why? Because it's autumn? haha.

Globish

I read an article about Globish. I hadn't heard about it since.

Globish is an abbreviation of Global English, and it was made for non-native English speaker and the number of vocabulary is just 1500. Its sentence is short, only basic grammar, and it is used with visual expression, such as gestures. So it is easier to it can reduce the time and energy to acquire.

Jean-Paul Nerriere, who is the former deputy president of IBM made it. He is a French. When he worked for IBM and had communication with people who were from many countries, what he was not good at was talking with native speakers, because they used complicated grammar or uncommon idioms. But the number of non-native speaker was greater than native speaker. Therefore, he created Globish. After that, people could have communication fully with Globish in IBM.

And according to this article, a person who works for a foreign company said that she worked in the multinational situation and people who spoke incomprehensible English were British. They spoke too fast, and if they had an accent, English of non-native speakers was easier to understand.

Mr. Narriere also told media that he could have communication with Japanese easier than American.

This article concluded with the following words;
Amid the globalization of human resources, there is situation that native speakers should master English that is understood by non-native speakers.

Anyway, I always think it was good that Japanese didn't become a global common language instead of English. It is hard to learn Japanese. Of course there are many languages that are much more difficult than Japanese though.

The most livable city in the world

According to a survey by an American consulting firm, the ranking of the most livable cities in the world is as follows.

1. Zurich (Switzerland)
2. Geneva (Switzerland)
3. Vancouver (Canada)
4. Vienna (Austria)
5. Auckland (New Zealand)
6. Dusseldorf (Germany)
7. Frankfurt (Germany)
8. Munich (Germany)
9. Berne (Switzerland)
10. Sydney (Australia)

Hmm... many European cities. What's surprising to me is that many German cities were ranked. I see. Tokyo is best for me though. haha.

By the way, writing cities' name is difficult. I didn't know most of spelling of those cities and I had to refer to a dictionary.

Delicious Salmon!!

I love sushi, or more like sashimi.

I went to a sushi restaurant today. (I often go.) Needless to say, TASTY! Especially I love salmon!! I'm really happy to be born a Japanese.

Yummy!!

The failure of NOVA

Japan's biggest English conversation school, NOVA went bankruptcy. It might be a matter of course.

NOVA's lesson fee per a lesson is cheaper than others'. Instead of that, students have to pay 3 year's fee in advance. 3 years! Now, it is impossible that the students get reimbursed the fee. Terrible.

Any native speakers can be NOVA's teacher easily, if they graduated college of university, even if they have no experience of teaching. Almost all of the teachers didn't have experience of teaching English. They are just native speakers. Just it. I never want to pay for studying from such a teacher.

NOVA's teachers lost their job. According to the news, they haven't got paid for 2 months. I think it is hard for them to find a new job. No job in a foreign country... I am very sorry about their anxious situation.

All students have paid

New PC FINALLY!!

My new PC finally arrived!! Wow!! It arrived ahead of schedule.
I thought I had bought smaller one, but it was a bit bigger than I thought.

Anyway I would be freed from going to an internet cafe?

Let me introduce my new PC!

Happy Birthday to Me

New Cell Phone

I changed a cell phone company, because service of my previous cell phone company was too bad on many kind of aspects.

So of course I had to change mobile equipment. Usually I chose equipment for its design, but at this time, I chose for one function. It is camera function.

Yes, all cell phones have camera function. But my new cell phone's is different from others'. Casio's EXILIM is attached the cell! It already is not a cell phone. It is more like a digital camera.This camera function is much better than my old digital camera. Haha. I haven't used that perfectly yet...

As I wrote on this blog the other day, I want my life to be simple. I don't want to have too much things. So in this time, I avoided to have both two peaces of equipment, camera and cell.

Buying new computer

I decided to buy new computer.
I often wrote about my computer on this blog. It doesn't work well, more like it is almost broken. Finally I became unable to connect to networks. My computer can't recognize its network port. So I go to an internet cafe recently. My computer has no decent parts now.

I went to an electronics retail store the day before yesterday to buy a computer. Actually I wanted to avoid buying Dell or HP, because I have an image that those PCs are for companies. Almost all companies in Japan use Dell or HP computers.
But, I ended up choosing Dell, because of its price. Dell's computers are a bit cheaper than others.

Unfortunately, it takes 2 weeks to receive the computer, because it's Dell. I have to continue to go to an internet cafe for a while.

I wonder why atmosphere of internet cafe is unsoundness.

Too insistent the possessive in English

I might have written a article of such a theme before. I always feel that about "Whose" is mentioned TOO much in English.
For example;

[They gave their teacher a big boquet of flowers for her birthday.]

Why do we need to say "their" and "her"? That's obviously her birthday. Who gives someone a birthday present for OTHER'S birthday?

[He took off his glasses.]

The glasses he wears is of course HIS glasses. Why do we need to say "his" specially? We can say it only when he wore OTHER'S glasses and took it off.

[He divorced his wife.]

It is impossible to divorce OTHER'S wife!!!

24 Season 5

Broadcasts of 24 season 5 started on TV this week, it is midnight as ever though.

Unfortunately, Michelle, who is my most favorite character in 24, died in the first an hour. It was pity!

Personally speaking, the season 1 is best. 24 is becoming humdrum. The season 5 is very monotonous and dull. I can see what to expect easily. (I tend to be able to see what to expect even in other dramas and movies though.)
In the season 1, there were much unpredictable quality, surprising and speed.
It ran out of topics?