In the morning, I was very reluctant in getting out of bed because it was soft, the blankets were warm and the room seemed chilly… and then when I finally did leave the room, I got the answer as to why that was…
Snow!
Sarah, Lina, Corina, Jason and I took a nice walk in the morning to a local café (which turned out to be closed) and that was full of snowball fights.
We had another busy day lined up in front of us, starting off with a visit to Fushimi Inari Taisa (my suggestion, hehe)
<(*o*)>
So beautiful.
It’s such an amazing, wondrous feeling walking through all those orange gates…
As if you’re about to emerge on the other side of a Miyazaki movie.
Afterwards, we headed through the little market they had in front of the temple where I purchased a rose quartz stone bracelet that now sits on my wrist alongside my black onyx.
(Not a photo of the bracelet XD)
Afterwards we went to Kiyomizu and while it was wonderful to witness the contrast between summer and winter, I must say (despite summer heat) it is far more beautiful during the summer.
Same view from this summer
Unfortunately, after we returned to the bus stop… the buses were late. And we were forced to wait for almost an hour. I am pretty certain I was a popsicle by the time.
We were planning to stop by Gion for some time just to look around (and perhaps try to see some maiko) but the lateness of the bus forced us to cut the day short.
Instead, we headed straight to Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion.
I found that despite the sheer striking appearance of Kinkakuji, the subtleness and simplicity of Ginkaku was far more beautiful to me.
We ended the evening by going around the center of Kyoto and losing Corina ^_^;;;;
But we found her~
Poor thing went to take a "three second picture" and got separated by the crowds of people. Apparantly, she started practicing asking for help after a while:
"すみません。。。まいごです。うたのユースホステルはどこですか。ごめんなさい、がいじんです。"
As for today, we left Kyoto and took the Nozomi bullet train to Shinagawa, followed by a bus to the part of Shinjuku where we’re staying.
We’re staying at the Tokyo International Hostel, my least favorite of the three we’ve been in.
But we do have a pretty fantastic view:
The aforementioned group and myself headed out to central Shinjuku for the evening, mainly because I wanted to pay a visit to Marui One and its Sparkling Sale. Hehehehe >.< Bad idea.
On the subway
The following photos were stolen from Lina because I was too busy being wide-eyed over the displays.
