confusion

After visiting some of my family in Paris, Candice and I flew to Japan to meet up with J███████, K– and J– in Japan to rain havoc on ‘the island nation.’ Of course J███████ and K– arrived some days before Candice and I so the three of them had headed to Kyoto before us and it was up to Candice and I to navigate the train system from Narita airport to Kyoto.

It wasn’t too bad actually Japanese efficiency being what it is. And meeting up with our co-conspirators in Kyoto was easy—look for the crazy Gaijin in front of the train station. From their we settled in our friendly little Ryokan and hit the sack so we could begin our adventures early in the morning.

Early in the morning it was snowing! Which is very cool because part of the reason for going to Paris and Kyoto in the dead of winter (aside for it being the best time to meet everybody’s schedules) was to get some cold weather in—it doesn’t snow in Singapore and possibly never has.

We spent a week exploring (or re-exploring in the case of J███████, J– and I) Kyoto. We visited most of the major sites: Nijo-jo [wikipedia.org] where the Shogun [wikipedia.org] use to play, Ginkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Silver Pavilion and Kinkaku-ji [wikipedia.org] the Golden Pavilion. We revisited Heian Jingu [wikipedia.org] and visited a new (to us) site; Fushimi Inari-taisha [wikipedia.org].

We also ventured outside Kyoto to Uji [wikipedia.org] to visit the Byodo-in [wikipedia.org] a site J███████ and I neglected with S██████ on our previous trip. Also outside Kyoto we visited Himeji [wikipedia.org] to visit it’s famous castle [wikipedia.org]. And we returned to Nara [wikipedia.org] to revisit the Todai-ji [wikipedia.org] to see the big Buddha.

Of course all this visiting of various things in and around Kyoto was second to the big thing I did in Japan—I asked Candice to marry me and she said yes as already covered here [confusion.cc]. Done in the beautiful afternoon light at Kinkaku-ji.

After all this running around Kyoto we returned to Tokyo for a few days and visited a few places; Meiji Jingu [wikipedia.org], Sensoji [wikipedia.org] and all the famous streets, train stations, etc. Mostly we were in Tokyo to shop and meet up with some of Jim’s local friends so we could drink ‘sake’ and ‘beeru’ and eat much pub food. Unfortunately Jim doesn’t drink more than a few mouthfuls anymore—it messes with his concentration when he is meditating!

All in all a wonderful trip (even aside from getting engaged!) Can’t wait to do another trip with these guys. Travel is most fun when you’re with a bunch of like minded fools!

After more than three years away I made it back to Paris with my digital camera. Ever since I got the 10D I have wanted to return to Paris—and the rest of Europe that I visited prior to my digital upgrade. Last time I was in Paris one of my younger sisters was with me, this time the other younger sister was with me, and my older sister, and my mom, and, most importantly, Candice.

We visited many of the same places that I took my sister last time. There was, this time, as before, a lot of steps. There were steps at the Towers of Notre Dame [wikipedia.org]. There were steps at Montmartre [wikipedia.org] and some more at Sacre Coeur [wikipedia.org]. There were steps at the Arc de Triumph [wikipedia.org]. There were steps everywhere, except at the Eiffel Tower [wikipedia.org] which I did not make them climb to the top of.

As usual we did a lot of walking, though we did more Metro riding than I have done on most trips. Too cold outside and too many people to make them walk all over the city. As a result of not walking as much and eating way too often in the Latin Quarter I don’t think anyone lost any weight this time. That’s too bad losing a few pounds is the best side effect from walking miles a day—even eating all that fatty street food.

All in all a good trip. I like Paris better in the late spring or early fall but at least there were almost no tourists this time. It only took 30 minutes to get into the Eiffel Tower! I took a lot of photos though as usual some of the shots I thought would be best did not turn out well. I even managed to clean the photos up and post them in under two months!