Kyoto trip

This week I had no school because of Nanzan University's cultural festival.  However, instead of attending that festival I went to Kyoto with two other international students!  ^_^

The main reason why I went on the trip was to actually see 2 of my friends from OSU - I made plans to meet up with them during the trip.  I also really wanted to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine, the main shrine for the kitsune god and well known for it's "1000 red gates".  Pictures are online on facebook, but it really is an amazing place.  It's only a little far from Kyoto's main downtown area, but you feel completely isolated from the rest of the world.  Walking up the mountain a bit through the red gates was a really relaxing time for me and my friends, but once we realized that we only hiked a fourth of the way up and that we had another 2 hours to go, we called it quits and went back to our hostel.

The hostel was another new experience for me.  When I was searching for places to stay, hostels were the cheapest places to stay in, even you had to share a room.  However, it worked out fine - the place we stayed at was very clean and nice, and the staff were very welcoming and accommodating.  My friends and I could lock up our stuff if we wanted to, and we had separate bunk beds.  Yes, we slept in the same room as strangers, but we rarely saw any of them.  Plus, in the common areas we got to hang out with other tourists and have a great time with them as well!  So I would definitely say staying at a NICE hostel is a great experience, and something to not be afraid of.

The sights around Kyoto were really beautiful, but the one drawback was transportation.  I realized during my last full day there that the buses are a lot more convenient to travel to historical sites, but it still takes a while to wait for one.  Taxis are too expensive to take as well, at least for all of my friends.  However, the journey to somewhere can be exciting as well, just because it's a new city with different people.  Traveling time was also my time to talk with the friends I haven't seen in a while, and catch up with them.

So even though I didn't get to see all the sites I wanted to, I still had a great time there.


I'm still planning on going one day though.  I really can just take a one day trip to Kyoto, which is what a couple of my dorm mates did actually instead of a 4day and 3 night trip like I did with my friends.  :-P  Plus, it can be cheap, depending on how you get there.