Great days

Wow it's already December! Nowdays my every post starts by apologizing how rarely I manage to actually sit down, put photos to my computer and post them here. Sorry about that.

This last month I had my brother and two friends from Finland visiting Bali and Ubud. Since the three weeks were so full of adventures and small highlights I can't share it all, but here are some moments on the way. 

The monkey forest. You could spend hours just looking these little fellows playing around!

If you stand still they might even include you to their play.

And make a fool of you.

We also climbed the mount Batur, the other still active volcano in Bali. The sunrise on top was so beautiful!

Antti, Tinja, Yasha, me, our guide Putu and Leo (taking the photo) walked around the crater.

Me and Leo  just down from the very top.

Down after the long hike.

Tinja's and Antti's last dinner in Ubud before they headed down South to the beach.

Ayu's birthday at Locavore

Leos dream was to drive around the whole island with motorbikes, but since that was a bit too long way, we just went to Lovina and back. The 8 hours ride was tiring but totally worth it. The scenery up in the mountais was so beautiful and getting lost in small villages were one of the higlights of our journey.

Lake up in the mountains.

Crazy roads, and the one in the photo was still easy.

At Lovina we went to snorkeling with small boats.

With Leo we also visited some nice restaurants and bars with cool interiors.

From Ubud we also took a car and went to Finn's beach club in Uluwatu 

Hello blue waters!

We also took our new friend Kim with us to enjoy the ocean.

On Leo's second last day we visited Tirta Empul, a temple with holy water.

Since I like the kois a lot, I could have spend a whole day just watching them going around.

Room for dessert? Yes! Great place for Yasha's, Mora's and Leo's last night in Bali.

And sometimes good things comes to an end, and these lovely people had to return to Australia and Finland. Thank you for great time and good good memories!

o o
o
 o
If you wish to see whats happening here in Bali on a bit faster tempo, have a look of my instagram.
instagram.com/esakapila

And about the renovation? I'll post about that soon! During the stay of Leo and my friends, I was still working every day in order to get the new rooms done. We had to extend the renovation to two other rooms aswell because of some leaking pipes - so now we are working on 4 rooms.

But more text and photos later on! Have a nice day!

Last days

We visited so many great restaurants and cafés! So friendly and sweet people! Even without common language it is possible to communicate :)

Namikawa Cloisonné museum. This place is also very interesting because of it's many beautiful details. It is over 100 years old house but somehow it feels so moder with shojis made of glass and having windows in inner sliding doors. This is again a home and a studio of Japanese famous artist Namikawa Yasuyuki. His Cloisonné works are famous all around the world and not so many of his work remained in Japan - But here you could see some of his works. So beautiful but photos were not allowed except in the garden.





Nice Jazz café next to Demachiyanagi station. My parents visited the dorm where I live and we had walk at the Kamogawa river. 



Fushimi Inari is still one of my favourite places and this was the 4th time for me to climb up to the mountain and see all the thousands of torii gates again. I'm actually very proud of my parents by coming all the way up :)


On our last day together we went to Heijan Jingus garden.  From window the day looked sunny and warm, so we ended up freezing without jackets and warm clothes. In here we saw the first cherry blossoms! It is a shame that my parents didn't get the opportunity to see sakura in its full bloom but at least here we saw some trees :)





I can't belive that the three weeks went by so fast! It was absolutely fantastic to have my family here (Leo, Tule tule tänne kesällä ja Kaija, meikäläinen ottaa niin paljon kirsikakukkakuvia jahka pääsevät täyteen kukkaan!) and it was nice to take everyting easy and not to rush around. Great days and good memories!

Tea ceremony and Japanese ambiance

Plum blossoms at Kitano Tenmangu. So many different colours from white to dark pink mixed with all kind of lanterns. So beautiful!

There were also very good exhibition of Alphonse Mucha's work at Kyoto railways station. There is a "skyway" kind of path in the roof of the station that can be walked and the view is quite nice.


One of the highlights of the places we visited were this Kawai Kanjiro's house museum. It used to be the home of famous potter and nowdays it can be visited. There are his work showcased but also his collection of furniture and everything. For me the atmosphere and environment he lived and worked in was so harmonious and so so Japanese. It was something I haven't seen here yet so strongly.  






Beautiful kimonos in a special exhibition, where taking photos was not allowed - so I only managed to get this one beautiful detail.
 
The other highlight was to have a tea ceremony with Shihos family in Shokado garden. After that we had so good temaki sushi at their house. Thank you for such a great day!