hello. welcome to my first late post. it was bound to happen eventually but this was a hell of a day.

i woke up at a crisp 4:53 and had breakfast listening to the french tourists behind me talk about the museum they were going to. i really like the funny looking garden space in our hotel it’s unique and fun to look at.

[i wouldn’t call myself a competent french speaker especially since i’ve completely stopped studying it for 4 years now but it is genuinely very exciting to practice my comprehension with the tourists here. i truly wish i had more time for language learning but alas i kind of need to spend all of my learning energy on things that will get me a job at the moment…]

after breakfast it was full on off to the races. i’m gonna be honest everything was so fast and i got so tired that i don’t particularly remember a lot of the details, but i will talk about a few of my favorites.

the bamboo forest at tenryu-ji went hard. that was really an experience i couldn’t have gotten anywhere else. you don’t get trees that tall in most other forests, the feeling of being covered by something that tall was new. the bamboo didn’t grow like trees, with even spacing between them and their neat, even shape throughout provided a clearer view of the forest floor than usual. The thinness of the bamboo also meant that they bent more in the wind, with the small leaves above behaving in a fabric-like manner. i’m considering going too another bamboo forest on a free day. i don’t feel like i had as much time to process this as i would have liked.

[this area, like all of them, was very crowded. it was hard to get a good picture because we couldn’t stop, that’s gonna be a theme throughout the day.]

i don’t have any pictures of this but midday me, fabian, liam, and pavel went to a ramen place that was very small but inexpensive. this tonkatsu ramen was my first proper ramen in japan (i wasn’t into soup last time i was here…). the taste was good, although not too different from ramen i’ve had from home. it came with an extra korokke which was taken away before its time which i am legitimately still bothered by… (i think the server assumed i wasn’t gonna eat it because i didn’t put it in the ramen but ah… the disappointment…)

alright. last anecdote. this place is probably in everyone’s accounts due to its scale, but the kiyomizu-dera temple was unreal. like all of the places we visited, i really wish i could have had the chance to give this place the time it deserved. especially when it comes to these elaborate shrine and temple constructs, that were made to be contemplated and appreciated slowly, intentionally, it feels wrong to breeze through. to move so quickly that a steady, well positioned photo is barely achievable, let alone any reflection or deeper connection. i am aware that this is the nature of a tour, i suppose i just prefer to see a few things very well than many things all at once.

[you could spend days in this complex and the surrounding town. the scale was inspiring.]

this is more or less where my day ended for me. i was very physically strained and was struggling to stand up, so quickly after the movie at KCG i went to the hotel, ate a day old rice ball, and passed out. it’s been real. g’night y’all :2