Kyoto, like a fine wine, is a place
that one must savour.
The same as you would let a fine bordeaux slowly
roll across your tongue, you should also take your
time when visiting. Set aside the time to aimlesly
wander the winding alleys, discovering what lies around
the next corner, and inhale the warm scent of incense
coming from some unseen Temple.
But like even the best of wines, if you take in too
much at a time it can turn around and bite you.
Yes, after 4 solid days of taking photos in Kyoto/Nara
I am offically all-Templed-Out.
I do have thousands of new photos, so it was time
well spent, but I need a little break now. Unfortunately
I won't be getting much of a break though. I leave
for London on Sunday. I'm excited to go, I just hope
I have gotten my batteries fully recharged before
I get there.
If any of you Sushicam viewers/readers out there
live in London, drop me a message or an e-mail and
we can hook up for a pint or two (or three...).
--
But every cloud has a silver lining and the good
news about all my recent travelling means that I have
now achieved "Premier Silver" status with
United Airlines.
Attaining the vaunted "Premier Silver"
status means that in the past year I have logged roughly
enough miles in the "Crying-Baby/Aft-Restroom"
section of the plane that if you put them all together
they would stretch from Eastern Cleveland Ohio to
the planet Pluto and back. Twice.
I'm not really sure what benefits go along with my
shiny new milage card though. Maybe I get a few more
millimters of leg room (can a guy hope?...)
but I plan on taking full advantage of it on my flights
to and from London. And heck, by the time I have completed
this trip I may have wracked up enough additional
miles to qualify for the next level. I think they
call it "You-can-actually-See-business-class-from-your-seat"
--
While at Ryoanji Temple I met a group of young travellers
from Holland. They were on an extended vacation/work
trip to Japan and started talking to me as I was waiting
for the light to change. (Ryoanji is very difficult
to photograph since there is so much contrast between
the white stones and dark walls)
I told them that if they wanted to see the photos
they can go to my homepage, and proceded to give one
of the guys a card with my Sushicam URL on it.
As he looked at it a small smile broke across his
face. He looked at me and said, "I have visited
this site." It turned out that Sushicam was one
of the sites he found while doing a little research
about Japan prior to making the trip.
While this was not the first time that I have happened
to meet someone that has known about Sushicam, it
is the first time this has happened to me while I
was actually out taking photos.
I guess Sushicam has started to approach "Critical-Google-Mass"
and is coming up towards the top of a lot of web searches.
One of the benefits to being around for a (relative
to the internet) long time.
--
While in Kyoto I was drifting off to sleep one evening
to the sweet smell of tatami mats when I was suddenly
filled with the inspiration to try my hand at a quick
haiku in the classic three-line "5-7-5"
seventeen syllable style.
Crisp air of autumn
a maple leaf spins to Earth
the seasons march on...
Anyone else up for sharing a haiku of your own creation
with the rest of us?
Jump on in, the water's fine.
--
Since there has been a week-long dry spell on updates,
today I decided to super-size some of the photos and
also slip in a couple extra photos for you to enjoy.
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