19 August 2007 · Comment [3]
I'm in Paris being ironically afraid of rats!
Yaay, I’m back in the land of languages where I can at least guess what they’re trying to say! And all the punctuation keys are back in the right place! Oh it is so awesome. Also it doesn’t take me half an hour to figure out how to flush every toilet.
Yesterday I went to the Catacombs and I’m going to the Louvre in a minute. I’m feeling really loafy because a) I’ve been traveling for 1.67 months and that really takes it out of you, and b) I have over 3 months left in Europe so even if I don’t do every little thing that you’re supposed to do in Europe right away, I’ve got plenty of time to come back to places.
Okay, let’s talk about pictures! There are approximately one billion of them that need to be talked about, so I’m just gonna start at the top of the flickr feed and work my way down. Chronological order? We don’t need no stinkin’ chronological order!
This is from a temple in Kyoto. I saw at least three temples a day while in Kyoto and let me tell you, the middle of August is not the time to be viewing temples in Kyoto. Almost passed out some sixteen times. Autumn seems a lot less heatstroke-inducing and prettier to boot.
This is also from a temple in Kyoto! Who knows, maybe even the same one! My then-overheated brain certainly can’t distinguish them at this point. But it was neat, so yeah. There you go.
A super-futuristic toilet! Awesome.
The entrance to the ossuary in the Catacombs. I’m glad I slept in an eight-person room that night because that place was creepy to the max.
Creepy bones! I didn’t know the Catacombs were so chock full of bones. I guess I thought it would just be a bunch of tunnels with people buried along the walls? Whatever, this was awesome. I kept thinking of that song by The Islands that goes “Bones, bones, brittle little bones” and it sounds so happy. Here:
So happy and inappropriate for an ossuary!
French Ratatouille ad! I know this is completely foolish, but I was still surprised to see the logo without the (rat·a·too·ee) part. It just looks so naked.
A dumb comic! About this British guy named Duncan that I met in Kyoto. He’s a Jewish veterinarian! Awesome. Here are the real pictures:
Asian Cheese is the little rabbit ears thing that like every Asian person does when they take a picture. I just don’t understand it. I asked Jason Lee what it means and he said he just does it because every other Asian person does it. So weird.
Mount Fuji! Wish we’d climbed it but I’m sure we’ll be back in a few years.
Tee hee, Engrish. There were a ton of shirts like this all next to each other. Another one said “CAMERA!” a bunch of times and then had a picture of a camera and said “Life with camera.”
An adorable advertisement! Way to get adorableness down to a science, Japan!
This is a sign for a restaurant in Kyoto. It isn’t funny unless you’ve seen the In-n-Out logo, but it makes me giggle. Here:
Oh In-n-Out Burger, I miss you most of all.
Okay, I guess I’m just getting childish with my Engrish spottings at this point, but this one still seems funny.
A beautiful garden at a temple in Kyoto!
A zen garden from a temple in Kyoto! Zen gardens are so crazy because they’re huge and completely perfect and it’s like, where did the footprints go?! I know they just rake after themselves, but sometimes there’d be these huge swaths of straight lines that were all completely perfect and then every rock would be surrounded by a completely perfect ring of rakings and I just did not get it. They probably used magic. Or giants.
The river that goes through Kyoto. So pretty! Also, funny story about this river: I wanted to get to a temple that was across it and I couldn’t find a bridge so I tried to ford it (ha ha) but it turns out there were a bunch of sharp and slippery rocks on the bottom and I didn’t want to risk breaking my camera or my neck so I just turned around and walked another like mile in the sweltering heat until I found a bridge. And then I got lost several other times on the way to the temple because I can’t read maps in Japanese but I knew I was really close so I just kept circling around it until I ran into some other tourists who told me where to go.
Another temple in Kyoto! I never understood what people meant when they talked about velvety moss until I saw this.
A streetlamp decoration in downtown Kyoto.
The skywalk in Kyoto Station! So pretty. It’s eleven stories above the main terminal so it’s kind of scary.
The tea house in the Hama-rikyu gardens in Tokyo. Shoguns used to have tea here! Awesome.
Vending machines! Sadly I didn’t see any vending machines selling weird things, but the drink machines were still pretty spectacular.
In a rowboat in Ueno Park. It was really hot so we hung out under the trees for a while.
When I first saw these Crocs tags, I thought they said “Holey Shoes,” which I still think is funnier. Also, why is there a maple leaf in the logo? Maybe Holey Soles is the Canadian ripoff of Crocs. Weird.
Gobret of Fire! So Jono hates it when people laugh at Engrish where the r’s and l’s are mixed up, but I still think this one’s pretty priceless. Not just because gobret of fire sounds funny, also because it was sold in a big, reputable store and it’s obviously ripoff merchandise. See, Jono? Still funny!
Toilet slippers from the capsule hotel. I just don’t get it! Maybe she’s too cool for toilet paper. And her toilet is shaped like a duck? Whatever, still awesome.
The Sensoji temple in Tokyo! So pretty.
Keep out, Man! Yeah, that’s all.
Some flowers in the Hama-rikyu garden.
The godzilla monument in Tokyo! Awesome. Actually it’s just like a foot tall. It’s the magic of camera angles!
Another flower from the Hama-rikyu gardens.
So delicious, so happy! Also they had these egg salad sammiches that said “This sandwich looks tasty, let’s bite and taste it!”
Creap and Blendy!
Did you know that Santa opened up a fast food joint? Well he did and it’s in Thailand.
Hee hee, they trademarked their ripoff logo. Also, why does a store named after a nerdy card game sell nothing but bootlegged DVD’s? I do not know.
Hee hee, I have no idea.
I’ll be really interested to see how similar this is to the actual DVD cover. My money is on not even a little bit.
Pama sandals! I really wanted to get these for David but the largest size they had didn’t even fit me.
Squids! I’m glad I’m a vegetarian so I don’t have to feel like a pansy for not trying any crazy Asian foods.
Some leaves from the Rikugien Garden in Tokyo. Yep, I just thought they looked pretty.
Some more leaves! How neat.
And a bridge from the same garden! Excellent. And that’s the end of the pictures! And now I need some lunch like nobody’s business. Later, everyone!
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Dammit, now I want that hamburger shirt!
— Jono · Aug 19, 06:07 AM · #
Your pictures of Kyoto are beautiful! If there’s a heaven maybe it’s a moss-covered sanctuary and there’s a stone there with writing that you can never figure out even though you live there for eternity. But also there would be really good books to read and you could write haiku to pass the time.
Also, when I have a house I want it to be on a mountain in perfect harmony with the surrounding trees. That’s the way to live.
I didn’t realize that a lot of those paper lanterns are actually advertising businesses. I like them a lot better than neon signs.
Have fun in Europe!
Chris
— Chris · Aug 20, 11:47 AM · #
dear lord this is awesome.
— Noaa · Aug 20, 11:33 PM · #