Creepy or Coincidence - Encounters in Japan

When you go on a holiday and you snap a lot of photos, usually, you won't know what you'd taken until you started going through them one by one back home.

So, the hubs and I had taken over more than a thousand photos during our Japan trip, more than a month later, when I sorted out the photos taken on Nov 27th, I spotted these 4 persons in a photo the hubs took of the girls and I at the Fushimi Inari JR station, waiting for our train to go to Tokufuji. They were standing next to us (I'd cropped it to remove us from the photo) waiting for the same train.



These 4 persons are Thais, who, 2 days later, stayed in the same farmhouse as us more than 270km away from where this photo was taken. They arrived the same time as us (they took the bus, we arrived by car), and because they insisted to have four of them stayed in 1 room instead of 2 rooms as suggested by the owner, we had to let them have the bigger room originally meant for us.

That day at the farmhouse, only 3 rooms were taken, the Thais took 1 room, we took 1 room, and another Taiwanese girl 1 room.

Even the girls were surprised when I showed them this photo. They found it strange that we 'accidentally' took the photos of the Thais in another city far away from where we actually met them.

Coincidence, fate or creepy? It's like twilight zone.

If you know these Thais, get them to contact me, we might as well get to know each other and maybe we'll be good friends.

Japan 2013 Part 6 : Day 6 – Fushimi Inari Shrine 伏見稲荷大社, Tofukuji東福寺, Gion 祇園

The posts and summary for the whole trip, can be found here

♥November 27th Wednesday♥

Our last full day in Kyoto, and we decided to visit 2 more temples, Fushimi Inari Shrine 伏見稲荷大社 and Tofukuji 東福寺 which is on the same JR Nara Line, and one station away from another.

To be honest, if I were to plan for the holiday again, I would skip Nijo Castle, and probably visit a few temples less. We had in total visited 8 temples this trip! Way too many. Unfortunately, I can't turn back time, but will learn from this trip.

From Wiki -
Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社, famous for its thousands of vermilion torii gates (鳥居), is the head shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is 233 metres above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines.

Since early Japan Inari was seen as the patron of business, and merchants and manufacturers have traditionally worshipped Inari. Each of the torii at Fushimi Inari Taisha is donated by a Japanese business. First and foremost, though, Inari is the god of rice.

Guess maybe it's a shrine for patron of business, and red is an auspicious colour, we see red everywhere.






A Taiwanese wishing (on her wishing plague or Ema 絵馬) she would pass her exams and become an official teacher soon. Hope her wish is granted!


There were bunches of threaded origami cranes hung at the wishing board. All the best to them too.


For us non-believer, we just rang the bell at the shrine for good luck.


Statue of foxes, which are the messenger of Inari, are found around the shrine.




Even the Ema (絵馬) or the wishing plagues are in the shape of foxes.


The trail leading up the Inari mountain is lined with torii gates (鳥居).




With the donors named written at the back, as well as the date the torii is donated.




After Fushimi Inari Shrine, we headed towards Tofukuji 東福寺, which is 1 JR station away.

It's supposed to be another good place to view autumn leaves; but by this time, seriously, it was just another temple to me, I wasn't really enjoying myself. Moreover, it was so crowded at the temple.
















I was so glad the temple visit was over, as it was a super cold day.


Thank goodness for a sweet stall set up opposite the temple, which offered complimentary hot tea, seats around a couple of heaters, and free access to the samples of the various sweets they were selling.


Since it was our last night in Kyoto, we all wanted to go back to Gion 祇園 for some shopping. Unfortunately, it started raining when we reached there.

We found a yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant for dinner, which didn't have most of what we wanted. So we had a quick bite and left. The rain subsided a bit, but it was still wet.

Yasaka Shrine 八坂神社, Yasaka Jinja), also known as Gion Shrine seemed interesting, but nope, I wasn't visiting another temple!


I stood outside the shrine with the girls while the hubs went into to have a quick look, there, we looked out to Shijo （四条通）junction at Gion.


While we were shopping, we were very lucky to spot a big group of Geishas walking out from Hanamikoji Dori 花見小路通, they were catching cabs and seemed like they were heading to some function which invited/hired (ok, I don't know how this Geisha thing works) all of them.


After shopping (not that we did much), as we were not satisfied with our earlier dinner, we went searching for another restaurant.


We chose Heikichi Negiya aka the Heikichi Onion Shop 葱や平吉, a restaurant which featured mostly spring onion or onion dishes.





This is some special grilled onion, a recommended dish, but to me it was just another white onion.


Their yakitori was better than the earlier place that we went to though.


Then it was back to the hotel to pack for our next stop.

Japan 2013 Part 5 : Day 5 – Eikando 永観堂, Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺,Higashiyama District

The posts and summary for the whole trip, can be found here

♥November 26th Tuesday♥

Daily routine during our visit to Japan was to walk to the train/subway/bus station to get to the destination we wanted to visit. That Tuesday, it was Eikando 永観堂 that we planned to visit.

We gave the girls ￥150 daily as 'drink money', so, they would always made a stop at the vending machine, cracked their heads to choose a drink of their choice.


We took the subway from Gojo Station 五条駅 to Karasuma Oike Station 烏丸御池駅 (Karasuma Line 烏丸線) and then changed train to get to Keage Station 蹴上駅 (Tōzai Line 東西線), the station closest to Eikando 永観堂.

From Japanese Search : At the southern end of the Philosopher’s Path in Kyoto, just north of Nanzen-ji, you will find Zenrin-ji. Zenrin-ji was the name given to the temple at its founding in 863. It means “Temple in a calm grove,” but few people use the name any longer. In the 11th century it became known as Eikando (永観堂禅林寺) after a famous head priest named Eikan. Eikan is attributed with acquiring the unusual Amida Buddha statue in the main worship hall. The head is turned sideways, and the legend goes that originally the statue faced forward, but turned to speak to Eikan as he was walking by.

Entrance ticket to the temple is ￥600 for adults and ￥400 for children. It's one of the best temples to view autumn leaves per a lot of websites. The temple was very crowded the day we were there, but gorgeous indeed. You can see for yourself here.































It's almost like a fairy tale!

After Eikando, we bought some onigiri at the road side as our lunch, and walked to Philosopher's Walk/Philosopher's Path 哲学の道. Maybe it was autumn, and there's no cherry blossoms to view, it wasn't that pretty. There were a couple of artists selling their art work along the walk.



And it's home for a lot of (fat) cats.


Next we took a bus to Kiyomizu-dera 清水寺.

From the website : Located halfway up Otowa Mountain in the eastern part of Kyoto City, Kiyomizu-dera is a historic temple that was established in 778, even before Kyoto became the capital of Japan. Since its foundation, the temple has burned down many times. Most of the current buildings were rebuilt by the third Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in the early Edo period (1631 to 1633).

From the bus stop, we walked along Higashiyama District, the city's best preserved historic districts, with ancient streets lined with shops, eateries, to get to the temple; and picked up snack we fancied along the way.


I think it was a public holiday for Japanese the day we were there, there were so many people on the street, and of course the temple was extremely crowded.

We paid our entrance fee of ￥300 for adult, ￥200 for children, and joined the throng of people.

We went to Jishu Jinja 地主神社, a shrine dedicated to God of love and "good matches".





A lot of couples were there making wishes, or probably pledging undying love for one another.


Otowa-no-taki 音羽の滝, the waterfall where visitors drink for health, longevity, and success in studies.


Kiyomizu-dera is best known for its 'nail-less' wooden stage (Kiyomizu Stage 清水の舞台) that juts out from its main hall, 13 meters above the hillside below, which gives a magnificent view of the city below. It was so crowded that day, people stood behind one another to get a chance to stand at the edge for photos; but it was worth the wait.

Kyoto City, with Kyoto Tower, can be seen clearly on that day.




We slowly walked back out.


Along the street there were lanterns, indicating there's special night opening at Kiyomizu-dera, probably to see the autumn light up.


Yasaka Pagoda 八坂塔, is one of the most visible and recognizable landmarks in the Higashiyama District.


Outside of Kiyomizu-dera, more people were queuing to enter the temple for its night visit.


We came across many non-Japanese ladies (they spoke Chinese or Cantonese) beautifully made up in Kimonos walking around Kiyomizu-dera that day. It seems there are several kimono rental services in that area, starting from ￥3500, you can be a kimono clad Japanese for a day.

These 3 ladies, presumably from Hong Kong (they spoke Cantonese), were giggling, posing in front of a cream puff shop.


After the visitors started entering Kiyomizu-dera for their night visit, the streets quietened down slightly.


We found a small eatery nearby for dinner, and then headed to Gion 祇園 for shopping.

Supper was at Issen Yoshoku 壹錢洋食, a famous eatery at Gion. The restaurant only serves 1 dish, an Okonomiyaki-liked pancake. At ¥630, it draws a lot of local as well as foreign customers. It's renowned for its logo, a dog pulling the underwear of a young boy; its unique interior, where kimono-clad mannequins serve as your dining companions/hostesses at every table; and also the wall deco which are actually 'wishing plagues' or Ema (絵馬) with sexual content.











We only ordered one 'Okonomikyaki' to be shared. I didn't like it, the combination of everything mixed together wasn't to my liking.


It was then time to walk to the nearest bus stop to take a bus back to our hotel.