Fushimi Inari Taisha. August 20th 2011

I adore this shrine. If I had my way, I’d visit every week, and it was one of the main reasons I wanted to bring my mother to Kyoto.











This is one of those thousand-word pictures. My camera has an “identify the face” function which comes in handy, but here I was more interesting in the headless statue of a fox. But my camera refused to focus on it. It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the eerie face next to a tree behind the statue with a malicious smirk.



Sometimes my life is a Murakami Haruki novel…

Mom and I decided this is “The Bus Stop For Anti-Socials.”

Kitano Tenmangu, Toji

The real draw of Toji for me is the antique market held on the grounds the 21st of every month.

Tofuku-ji, August 19th 2011

Tofuku-ji is a temple that makes me go “awww” right from the start. Its name is a portmanteau - or “name-squish” as my not-so-inner-fan-girl would say – of Todai-ji and Kofuku-ji in Nara.