The rocks in Kyoto are different to Tokyo rocks

More photos from Kyoto! These are from Ryōan-ji, a Zen temple which boasts a large rock garden. When I first saw the rocks I thought "hmm great, rocks". After walking around the temple a bit, I came back to the rocks and sat down on the balcony where everyone else was sitting (there were a lot of people staring at these rocks), and soon found my self staring into the rocks, thinking. I can't remember what I was thinking exactly, probably something like "I'm hungry", or "tippy tippy ty all over the world", but, thinking is thinking! So congratulations rocks, you worked.


A view of the rock garden from a specially chartered helicopter the Japanese government organised to celebrate my arrival at Ryoanji.



The walls of the temple are made from clay that was boiled in oil. The distinctive patterns on the walls are from the oil leaking out after the walls were erected.


One of the things I loved about Kyoto was that you don't have to go far to be surrounded by trees. Most of the temples have quite lush gardens, the big ones especially so.



This is a snake Aaron and I saw climbing up the river bank while we were having lunch on the last day of my visit. We left just as it was about to slither onto the bicycle path.

Aaron, being the awesome person he is, met up with me every day for lunch and/or dinner, including the final night spent eating with the students of Kyoto University in their cafeteria - oh how that brought back memories! I must agree with Aaron, the food they serve their students is MUCH better and much cheaper than the fare at the UQ refec. Although, it's pretty hard to pass up a chicken dim sim.

So to thank Aaron for his hospitality, I now post a very flattering picture of him mid-bite of lunch.

Finally, some news. I am no longer coming back to Aus in September for the Tori concerts (sob, hardest decision I've ever had to make), so anyone looking forward to seeing me unfortunately will have to make the long trek to Tokyo (but the offer of a spare bed stands!)

And 3 days till my Patrick Wolf concert!!!

Finally... some Kyoto photos! Also, moving house and Patrick!

I finally got my act together, and have uploaded some photos. There's so many photos from Kyoto, so these are going up bit by bit.

These are photos of/from Kinkakuji Temple. It's very popular with tourists - there were SO many people here! So Kinkakuji Temple gets it's name from the fact that the upper two levels are covered in gold foil. At first when you see the temple it looks like it could just be gold paint - then when you get close enough you can see the water reflecting off it in such a way it could only be gold! Very beautiful (unfortunately it was cloudy the day I saw it, I bet it would look even more amazing on a sunny day).




The gardens around Kinkakuji were also very beautiful. They're mossy gardens, and look like a carpet of green has been laid out over the bumps and hills of the landscape.

Before leaving Kinkakuji I had some Japanese green tea (matcha) - they were serving it for 500yen and it looked traditional, so I thought it was worth it. I was served in a similar way to that shown below - the person serving it kneels down, and places the cup/bowl on the floor in front of you, turning the cup after placing it on the ground.


It also came with some sort of sugar and sweet bean paste cake, which had pieces of gold foil (or something that looked like gold foil) on the top.

So that was Kinkakuji! Now that I've started hopefully I'll be motivated to put up more photos :)

In other news, I've moved - I'll have to send out a mass email with my address, it's much simpler than my last one! Also my room is much bigger, I have so much storage space (that was a problem at my last place) including a desk to put my junk on, instead of the floor, and I have a real bed!! Hooray!!

Also, I'm going to see Patrick Wolf - he's playing in Tokyo on the night of the 2nd of July!!! Woohoo! I totally didn't expect him to come here (as much as I hoped he would), so to find out the other day was a complete shock! He's also touring Aus, playing Sydney and Melbourne - so if I was still in Aus I would have to have flown to see him. After much confusion I managed to buy my ticket from the machine at the convenience storeUnfortunately this is the same night Au Revoir Simone are playing in Tokyo (what are the odds?), so sorry Aaron, I'm going to have to miss them (unless I see them in Yokohama the next night). Anyway, yayness! I'm very excited as you can see. This will make up for having to miss Regina Spektor in Australia (soo jealous of everyone back home who gets to see her). Now if only Ms Spektor can come here, I'll be one very happy chappy!
Here is my ticket - I have NO idea what any of the Japanese says, nor do I know who the other people playing that night are. All I care about is the fact that the ticket says Patrick Wolf SOMEWHERE on there... cause when I was ordering this ticket, the machine said nothing about him, so I wasn't sure I even had the right night, or the right place. Then it printed out with his name, and all was right with the world.

My first concert in Japan!!