Researcher, or Tourist?

Today, I went to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Last Friday, Chen asked me if I wanted to go since a girl had backed out and I expressed an interest in going before.

Granted, I had a kanji midterm the same day but thats ok! Note - everyone screwed up on that midterm anyway, the teacher was so surprised. Not our fault that she didn't tell us what the format would be like and what kanji out of the HUNDREDS of compunds would be on the test. There were ones that we didn't even cover in class.

Anyways...going there was pretty important/imperative because it's a topic of research. So for now, a tour of the place seems like a good idea.

The tour for the Imperial Palace was about an hour and conducted in English. I was worried that I was going to be late, so I hailed a taxi at the bus stop - I think I missed the 201 bus that goes in the direction of the Imperial Palace and I needed to be there at 9:50 so I was worried that I was gonna be late. Taxis are expensive! Bah. Oh well - not like I take them all the time.

Turns out, I got there before Chen, but I had no idea where I was going. I whipped out my phone, called her and said "Doko ni iku?" ("Where are you?") The funniest thing happened - a tourist couple probably from Canada or the US just whipped their heads around and just looked at me, as if a foriegn person carrying a cell phone and speaking Japanese was a rare species of person. Then they just walk around asking "English? English?" because they were lost too. I spoke to them, saying that I was there for the tour too, but waiting for my friends.

The tour guide was cute. The waiting room had lockers, so I didn't have to lug my bag around, which was really convenient.

The buildings were cool - I took alot of photos in case I needed them and FINALLY got some momiji pictures:





"Momiji" or "Kouyou" are autumn leaves. The reason why the streets and temples and buses in Kyoto were so crowded a week or two ago? Everyone was coming in to see the autumn leaves. Mid-late November is peak season for tourists, as is cherry blossom madness in April. I am now using the first picture as my new desktop wallpaper.

I unfortunately wasn't able to get to the good momiji viewing spots like Kinkakuji and see all the autumn temple viweings because of moving, school and general craziness, but I will definitely make it next fall.

One of the highlights of the tour was the garden:





I should consider myself lucky. Japanese rarely get the chance to see stuff like this - they can only get into the Gosho or the other Imperial Palaces (there are more in Tokyo and a bunch of villas like Katsura Villa in Kyoto as well) by lottery. All I had to do was show my AR card for identification.