Fall Leaves

The leaves in autumn
Fall ever so gracefully.
A beautiful sight.

秋の葉は
淑やか落ちて
美しい。

So, the leaves have been gradually changing over the past month. It starts in northern Japan, and sweeps the country towards the south, like a shock wave. This means that the leaves changed color up here before Kyoto. That also means that I had the opportunity to see beautiful mountainside views of the leaves up here, then to travel down to Kyoto and see them again! So I did. I took so many pictures! I will post some up here for you all to enjoy. Actually, I went to three different sites. The first was after the Fall Festival, a few weeks ago. Then after that, (a week or two later), I went to Naruko with Shoe to check out the leaves there. Gorgeous. Then this past weekend, I went to Kyoto again! My girlfriend and I visited Arashi Yama (literally, "Storm Mountain") and saw the beautiful leaves, next to the beautiful river, with beautiful geisha tending to their clients. It was quite a beautiful weekend.

My girlfriend and I were both recovering from a cough/cold, so we couldn't do too much, but we still explored and did everything we could. Some fun activities include:

1) Going to a ninja themed restaurant!
2) Participating in tea ceremony!
3) Eating awesome delicious huge fresh sushi with an old college buddy!
4) Winning Evangelion figurines from an impossibly difficult UFO catcher with said buddy! (Actually he did all the work, haha.)
5) Watching a master flower arranger arrange flowers!
6) Watching a kyougen play! (old-style comedy play)
7) Watching a dance performed by two beautiful geiko!
8) Watching a bunraku (puppet) performance!

It was definitely my most event-filled trip to Kyoto thus far. I will try to post pictures...somehow. Can't do it right now, 'cause this computer I'm using at work is just too old for that!

Word of the day: 美しい　「うつくしい」 "utsukushii," which means "beautiful."