These photos were taken on the way to Osaka, and in and around Osaka and Kyoto, in February of 2007. This is the second of two pages, since there were so many photos. Click here to view the first page, or here to view the corresponding blog entry.
This was in Kyoto (the city is very close to Osaka), and we spent most of the afternoon walking around and looking at temple and shrines and other interesting parts of the city.
This is a "fortune wall." Each of the pieces of paper tied to this fence is a fortune that someone got at the temple.
Believe it or not, this is a cherry tree, starting to blossom in February (very early) because the weather had been so warm.
Myself, with Ulala.
The entrance to another Shinto shrine.
A statue of an animal.
Some ducks.
More ducks. There are actually five ducks in this photo, although you cannot see one of the female ducks, which is underneath the mallard (the male duck in the center). Aflac, eat your heart out.
An Austin-Mini. The parking spaces are quite interesting. Space is obviously at a premium in many parts of Japan, so the parking spaces have platforms that rise up and down and sink into the ground, which means that two cars can park in the same space, with one underground and one at street level when the "elevator" is down.
Big Buddha.
Here, Ulala is putting an incense stick into a special monument.
If I remember correctly, this statue commemorated the year of the monkey.
Walking around, sight-seeing.
Pinwheels, commemorating young childen.
A photo of a urinal that I couldn't pass up - "Toto, you're not in Kansai anymore."
A couple of big fish.
A print of a dancing squirrel.
A giant fossil.
A machine in a donut shop that made cute little sweet donuts, as the customer ordered them.
Ceremonial swords.
A ticket to the Kiyomizo Temple.
A small dragon.
The Kiyomizo Temple is built over the side of a large hill, rather than into the hill itself. The entire temple is built on enormous wooden stilts and support beams.
Another photo of the Kiyomizo Temple from another angle.
This photo shows water coming from underground springs near the Kiyomizo Temple. Visitors are supposed to reach out and catch some of the water with the long-handled cups, and use it to wash their hands and mouth to help purify themselves.
This photo at the base of the Temple shows just how massive the structure is, and how complex the support system is.
A street in Kyoto.
Supper time.
These next photos were taken at the Oasis Lounge, where I played on Saturday night. This is Dan, owner, mixing a drink.
Ian, playing at the club.
This is Nobu, who is a former Mr. Japan body-building national champion.
Dan, with a couple of his customers.
Lee, a DJ who is originally from Canada, with Erik Archer. Erik runs the Bike Club Osaka website and promotional network.
Me, picking another record.
Ian, dancing.
Dan, having some shots of Jagermeister.
Shaun Young, advertising a can of Shark energy drink.
In case my clothes were dirty, the hotel had a "laundly room." There were even some nice marble engravings elsewhere in the hotel that said the same thing. It appears that the Japanese have problems differentiating between R's and L's sometimes. I would like to learn to speak Japanese, although it seems to be a moderately hard language to me.
Instructions on how to use the toilet in the hotel. It was pretty high-tech.
These phones are pretty high-tech. They receive TV broadcasts, so when you open the phone, you can swivel the screen around to set it to "landscape" orientation, to make it easier to watch.
Osaka on Sunday evening.
When we were walking downtown on Sunday night, I ran into Kyohei, just out of the blue. Kyohei went to the same university in Canada that I did, but I didn't expect to run into him when I was visiting (considering that Osaka has about nine million people).
Model figurines of some sort of village scene.
A view of Osaka at night, taken from the top of the Umeda Sky Building.
Another photo from the Sky Building.
Myself, with Kevin & Danielle, two friends from Halifax who are teaching English in Japan.
A three-wheeled mini truck.
Ulala, looking at a giant ceremonial mask.
Baked corn potato french fry poster.
A bright green "melon" pop.
Dinner on Sunday evening. We ate at Fugetsu, up in the top of the Hankyu Grand Building. It was interesting, because the meal was cooked on a large hot plate built right into our table.
Here is the food, being prepared by the waiter/cook.
I had an oyster & shrimp cabbage dish, which looks a little scary, but was really quite tasty.
Downtown Osaka.
A pachinko parlour. Gambling for money is illegal in Japan, but many people play pachinko for toy tokens, and then there are stores near the pachinko parlours which will buy the tokens that you win.
Here, Ian and Kevin are playing some sort of video game where the object is to beat on big drums.
Another video game, with some pretty nice graphics.
This looked pretty interesting - I was tempted to go in and try some "Ilish" beer.
A Christmas themed "love hotel."
I believe that this pennant was supposed to be showing the lyrics from "The Rose," by Bette Midler.
A poster outside a hostess bar.
I think this was supposed to be a giant perogie.
Our bartender, Hashi, at Captain Kangaroos. He is holding a large bottle of Shochu, which is a sort of wine made from baked sweet potatos. I stuck to beer.
Leaving Osaka, on the way to Tokyo ....
This is the second of two photo pages from this trip, since there were so many photos. Click here to view the first page.
Click to go to the Photo Gallery Menu or Main Page of the DJ Bolivia web site.
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