Orientation Ceremony and Kyoto Tour

This is the president of Kansai Gaidai speaking at the orientation ceremony. This was followed by a poorly organized luncheon where they had one buffet and two converging lines.

This is ryan, he is 6 foot 5 inches. As we waited in line to buy a train ticket, he impressed everyone by picking up small children.

I wanted to see if he could pick me up. There is no picture, but I picked him up afterward and almost soiled myself in the process.

These are the girls who showed us around Kyoto. The names I can remember are Yumi and Madatsu and those might not even be right. Their English was pretty good and they were patient as my group and I took a lot of pictures. This picture was taken as we waited to switch trains.

This is the entrance to the temple we went to; I believe it is the Yasaka shrine.

When you enter a temple you must first wash your left hand, then your right, and then your left again (I think). Then, I was instructed to drink a little of the water and spit it out.

Here is a Shinto shrine inside the temple.

Here is me imitating a deity. I hope it was ok.

Here's a cool bird I saw.

These are paper lanterns; they light it up at night.

Observe:
Everybody's favorite, the rickshaw. The rickshaw drivers wear funny shoes which separate their big toes.

"jinrikishya"

This is what I ate at the temple. The ice cream flavor was chestnut (they were out of the green tea flavor, although I tried it and it was great); the brown things are mini fish. I later threw away the mini fish as they were very salty and very bad.

Here is another shrine. There is a "jizou" or stone statue inside. I stuck my camera in there, but could not find anything.

This is a random poster for sale at the temple. There were lots of things on sale there.

Like this:

These are traditional "Maiko," or dancing girls.

Kiyomizu is the name of this Buddhist temple with stone lanterns "tourou" outside of it.This is the hand cleansing area inside the Buddhist temple.

This is a "Kane" or place for keeping time. There is a gong inside and at the end of the year, they ring it 108 times to represent the different areas of the body. I believe its shape is the inspiration for the Japanese symbol for time.

This area was for cleansing inside the body. The water was from the mountain and I was told that each stream represents something different i.e., love, study, and money. I am not sure if those were the three...but I was told I drank from love.

"Daeki" means drool. Originally, I thought it was a mistranslation, but now, I guess it is a parody of some sort.

The devil car of Kyoto.

Here is a Buddhist "jizou" or stone statue.

Here is Kyoto at sunset. The colors were more brilliant than what showed up. I am still getting the hang of the camera.

Here is a rickshaw driver who let me wear one of the other rickshaw driver's hats.

This sign is at the train station and warns against taking picture up schoolgirls' skirts. Apparently, that sort of thing is frowned uponin Japan.