Stephanie- Kyoto Temples and Shrines

Kyoto Temples and Shrines

Kyoto is a beautiful city and one of my favorite places I've visited so far in Japan. It has an amazing amount of traditional culture and over 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines (according to the Lonely Planet guide). Of course we didn't see them all, but we did get to visit many eautiful places, and I decided that the pictures were worthy of their own post.

Kinkaku-ji: the Golden Pavilion

Ginkaku-ji: the Silver Pavilion


My host sister having a snowball fight (Japanese sized!) with my brother and me.


Entrance to the Kiyomizu-dera temple

The water from the natural springs at the Kiyomuzu-dera temple
is thought to be sacred and have therapeutic properties.

Visitors drinking sacred water from the waterfall at Kiyomizu-dera.

Burning incense inside the temple

I have seen these stone statues with colored bibs all over Japan
and when I asked my host family about them, they explained to me
that the statues wear children's bibs because they represent the bodhisattva
who is the guardian of the souls of children, especially those who have died.

Comments

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Mi papa de México en Japón! This last week was exciting because I got to see Javier, my host dad from Mexico again! He's one of the coordinators of LEX México so he came to Tokyo last week for work and vacation, and it was really nice to see him. Almost two years ago, I went to México as an LEX intern for 3 months, and stayed with Javier's family in Mexico City. It was a great experience, and one of the main reasons I decided to apply for the LEX internship in Japan. I did a lot of the same things as an intern in Mexico as I do here in the office like help check documents and work with the exchange groups, and of course had the opportunity to live and work in an environment where I was always surrounded by and communicating in Spanish. Though my experiences as an LEX intern in Mexico and Japan have been different in some aspects, one of the things that has always been the same is the people. All the LEX members I have met in both Mexico and Japan have corazones grandes ...

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