Historic Kyoto Day 1

My brother and I spent 3 1/2 days in Kyoto and were quite exhausted by the end of it. We saw a lot of amazing temples and shrines and ate the most amazing ramen on the planet but as you can imagine all this involved a lot of walking. A little side note, if you plan on hitting Tokyo and Kyoto on your future trip to Japan, do Tokyo first. We were so exhausted and templed out by the time we got to Tokyo that we didn't see as many sights as we could have had we done it first. But I digress, on to the pictures and travel tips.

Day 1:
Quite by surprise, we had run into a fellow Busan EPIK teacher at our hostel the first night we were there. Friday was her last full day and she hadn't done Fushimi Inari yet so she tagged along with us in the morning. As you know from my last post, this was one of my favorite sites. Perhaps because it had just rained, or that we had most of the hike to ourselves, the whole place had an almost mystical quality about it. I took a billion pictures here. There were so many little shrines scattered along the path and of course more than 1,000 gates to take pictures of.

Strings of brightly colored paper cranes hung along a wall before a small temple

Highlights of Japan

I would like to sit down and break down my views on the two cities my brother and I visited while in Japan but for now I will just give a brief overview.

We flew to Osaka from Busan and got there early enough to go check-out the castle. It was kind of rainy so we quickly took some pictures around the grounds and got on a train to Kyoto where our hostel was. While in Kyoto we saw many shrines and temples as you can imagine but my top 3 were the Fushimi Inari Shrine, the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) and the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji).

 Fushimi Inari Taisha

Malaysia and Durian

Snow days make me so productive guys! Two snow days in a row and I've gotten two blog posts done! I feel so accomplished.

Now that I got the patting myself on the back done with, here is a post on my trip to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and my adventure in eating durian.

The KL towers all lit up at night.

Photo Sunday: Kawah Putih

My pictures from the sulfur lake at Kawah Putih are some of my favorite from my whole trip. I love the eeriness of the fog and the colorful lake. So today I am sharing my favorite picture from the sulfur lake.

I love this picture because it looks like it could be the cover for some book or movie. Perhaps a scifi or fantasy, or even horror or mystery. The lone tree in the lake with the fog obscuring the view, and the greenish blue colors just has such a presence to it.

I love pictures with a mystique to them.

If you're ever near Kawah Putih, Indonesia, I suggest checking it out.

Maybe you could take some awesome cosplay pictures there, it would be perfect for that.

Have you ever been to a sulfur lake? Have you been to Kawah Putih? Ever cosplayed?

-Alisa

My First Time Not Enjoying a New Country: Indonesia

Before this last trip I'd at least liked, if not loved, every new country I'd visited.
Then I went to Indonesia. I hate to say it, but I hated Indonesia. Well, at least I hated Jakarta. Bandung was okay, and Kawah Putih was stunning, but the sulfur lake was the only thing I liked about the country.

I hate having to say I hated somewhere. But goodness, I hated Indonesia.

I found it hard to like a place that was all either fancy malls, or areas like this with trash everywhere.