Night at the city

Finally some of the photos we took with Shiho two weeks ago. We had to wait until 1am to get the streets of Shijo a bit more empty before we could start. The idea was to use the lights of the streets and play with the reflections. We strolled around the area and stopped for interesting locations. Shiho were great as always and we had a lot of fun. Around 5 o'clock we were done and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise at the kamogawa river.

Great days

Hanami aka watching flowers.

The spring is officially here and the cherry trees are in their full bloom. So beautiful! The past few days have been the greatest! Having picknicks under the cherry trees and enjoying the sun. I call it "the art of doing nothing".

I have now lived here for six months and I'm about to start the second semester at my university. I feel like "the season two" is about to begin. Some old characters have left the show, some newcomers have came and let's see what kind of story it will be. It is the mixed feelings of missing the old good times, but at the same time waiting for the next great adventures.

Looking back the six months has been the best of my life. Jumping to emptyness when leaving Finland and landing to having so great people (and places) around me and having such a good friends to share it with. I'm a bit ashamed to say, but I haven't been homesick at all.

And since it is a new season and new tricks, I would like to ask if there is something you would like me to post about. It can be about school, about Japan, Kyoto or what ever I haven't been talking about yet.

And then to the photos. Some (well quite a few) photos about sakura and hanami. The riverside with mountains, families at the parks, beautiful sunset with soft pink light and the city centre with sakura hanging above the smaller canal.

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!

Lotus blossoms at Puri Saraswati

Beautiful lotus ponds between lotus cafe and Puri Saraswati in the center of Ubud.