This is the walk up the hill to the Kiyomizu-Dera in Kyoto. Dera means temple. It's a bhudist temple for people to go pray for things like good fortune, luck, prosperity, or other more specific problems.
In Nara we were feeding the deer. They turned from being cute and funny into being pushy jerk deer. But they were still funny while doing it, so I guess it was ok. They kept headbutting Mandy in the bum. It was funny.
This was taken while walking around the streets of Osaka at night. There are signs and lights everywhere. It's definitely an experience unlike any other.
This is the ride from campus back to the houses everyone lives in but without the crazy effects and music. So basically this is what it REALLY looks like.
Inside the temple there was first and foremost templey stuff, but aside from that there were Buddha statues, tappestries, and lots of artifacts. It was more creepy than it was beautiful honestly. You weren't allowed to wear shoes inside. I wouldn't have taken video expect that I saw other Japanese people already doing it, so I knew that I was allowed.
There was a big festival going on in Osaka and Mandy and I found ourselves smack in the path of it. We quickly rushed to the side and got a great view of the action.
This is the main entrance to the Fushimi Inari shrine mountain hike. Throughout the hike there are tori gates like this practically making a tunnel out of the path as you go up the mountain. Each of the tori gates are donated by either individuals or businesses, but they each have the name of the donator on them.
Standard video footage of what it's like riding a back down the back streets of Japan, but I added a soundtrack and edited the visuals significantly. I think it looks awesome and represents what it's like here fairly well.
Original Video by: Caitlin
Edited by: John Rosenwinkel
Music by: The Pillows
I condensed about 15 minutes of Fushimi Inari into a quick 2 minute video to give a quick impression of what the hike was like. It's very pretty the whole way up. But I thought this was pretty funny.
In Fushimi Inari as well as most other temples and shrines you can buy good luck charms and other little nick nacks that are supposed to protect those that have them. They make nice souvenirs though.
This is called a Pagoda. The top roof part is actually the biggest to create the illusion that they are all the same size. If in fact they were all the same size the top one would appear smaller due to the distance. Mandy taught me that. :-)
