Japan Roundup

So I’ve finally put up all the photos I took in Japan. Below is a summary and links to each post. I have also created some designs for gifts and home­wares over on Soci­ety 6 with my photo­graphs from Japan. You can find them here.

Indi­ana Jones and the Temple of Deer

Our final stop in Japan before flying home from Osaka was Nara. In the 700s it was the capit­al of Japan, at the time when Buddhism really became estab­lished in Japan. Nowadays as well as Buddhism, it’s known for the tame deer who live in the forest park surround­ing the temples and shrines. We stayed in a hostel in the forest. It seemed a short walk from the train station, but we ended up walk­ing along dark forest paths drag­ging cases seem­ingly forever, with deer star­ing at us accus­ingly like some­thing out of Prin­cess Mononoke. (The hostel turned out to be a pretty weird place too).

Kyoto Shrines and Temples

Kyoto is famous for its Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines, many of which are UNESCO world herit­age sites. There are so many in the city that even though I spent a whole day walk­ing round differ­ent sites, I only saw a small percent­age of them. People place stones on these Shinto torii gates for good luck. You can also see my photos of ema good luck plaques here.