Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 8, Part 2

From the Kyoto Imperial Palace we traveled to the Fushimi Inari-Taisha, the head Shinto shrine of Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Japan. This was my first time to this particular place. It was serene and beautiful. The walkway lined by torii gates is amazing to see, as I'll try to illustrate with the pictures below.

Again, we spent an hour or two here before moving on to our last stop for the day. I always enjoy seeing historical, cultural sites such as these and I wish I could do them more justice with the pictures I was taking.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 8, Part 1

Day 8 was our cultural tour of Kyoto, the old capital of Japan before it moved to Edo (Tokyo). We took a short trip from Osaka to Kyoto by train, and in the Kyoto JR station we took some shots of people bustling about. Even got some students to do a quick pose!

Our first stop was at the Kyoto Imperial Palace. A very beautiful and serene place to visit. One interesting note: no pictures are allowed to be taken inside of the palace itself. In fact, you cannot even sketch a drawing of the inside!

Outside, however, there is plenty to enjoy. From the craftsmanship that went in to constructing the palace and the various items surrounding the structure ...

... to the surrounding gardens.

It was amazing, and I haven't even talked about the sights we saw inside the palace itself. But unfortunately, after spending a couple of hours there we had to move on to our next location.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 7

Today was a travel day. Two of our party, Greg and X, were leaving to go back to the States so we saw them off at the hotel lobby. The rest of us had packed up and were set to take the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka where we would stay for the end of the tour.

The ride from Tokyo to Osaka took a couple of hours. Once we arrived, we made our way to our hotel and then Aka-san took us around the immediate area pointing out places of interest. We also took a trip through some of the more famous districts in Osaka like Dotonbori and Namba.

Intermixi TGS Tour - Day 6, Part 3

Wow, Day 6 seemed to go on forever didn't it?! After finishing up with Dan and Haruna, X and I had to grab the JR rail and head over to Ikebukuro to meet the rest of our tour group. Aka-san had arranged a night of karaoke for us and some representatives of Girl Gamer.

We found the whole group at Big Echo, one of the various karaoke establishments found in Japan. There isn't too much to say; we drank a lot ...

... enjoyed the company of some beautiful women ...

... danced and sang (some of us, horribly so ;-p) ...

... and then one of us kind of passed out. The night was a blast and for the most part everyone had a great time.

The great thing about these karaoke bars is that you rent a room for your group so that you can enjoy privacy while you make fools of yourselves (as opposed to karaoke in front of a bunch of strangers at a bar like we have here). It's usually a flat rate per person, and you have the room for set amount of time but during that time you can order as much food and drink as you want.

It was a great way to end a night, and for two of our crew it was the perfect ending to their trip to Japan. Tomorrow, most of us would be taking the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka while X and Greg would travel back home.