Kyoto 23-25 Nov

Apologies for the recent neglect - caught up doing too many things and nothing at the same time heh.

Last Wednesday (23 Nov) was Labour Day and a public holiday, and since I usually have no classes on Tues and Thurs, that left me 3 days free, so I went on a solo trip to Kyoto! =)

Days 1 and 3 were on my own, but day 2 I was lucky enough to have Sze Ping come down from Osaka to join me. It was great catching up with her =)

Anyway here's some pictures from Kyoto. Even though it's supposed to be the start of the perfect momiji (red maple leaf) season, but the unusually warm weather so far meant that it was still pretty much multi-coloured with just some red trees. Still pretty though:

Famous Kinkakuji

Sze Ping and I at Toufukuji

The thousand Torii Shrine - Fushimi Inari

Kyoto Imperial Palace

It's Autumn =)

Europe next week on, but I still have lots to prepare. What's new? Heh...

Midterm Red Magic at Nikko

The past four days were the first school break in a while. Thursday was Culture Day - Bunka no Hi (文化の日); Friday was a school holiday in preparation for the Waseda School Festival on the subsequent Saturday and Sunday. So yay, no classes for 4 days in a row, and since I usually have classes 10.40-12nn, and 2.45 to 4.15pm on Saturdays, this was my first ever free weekend!

Thursday was spent recovering from the all-nighter that I pulled on Tuesday night that preceded a 9am-6pm day (with 2 reports and 1 presentation due), and so Friday we went off to Nikko (日光）to see some of the autumn red leaves.

Nikko National Park is quite an interesting place actually, with a World Heritage area, theme park area, onsen, mountains of deciduous forests, Lake Chuzenji, plateaus and waterfalls too. Definitely worth a second, and much longer, visit, but for now, mission accomplished.

More photos up on facebook.

Too bad but am now back to reality of more midterm reports, assignments and presentations.