#<- the little leaf reminds me of your hiking pics!

[seedlessmuffins]

favourite part about british columbia? (that doesn't give away too much about u)

oh bestie i have so many you don’t even know!

vancouver bias aside, i love love love the lake cities of the interior, especially nelson and west kelowna. the kootneay lake and the okanagan are so nostalgic for me, i love it there.

honestly any vancouver beach i love, but sunset beach is my fav of all time! it’s also so crazy to me because it’s a white sand beach with palm trees in downtown van like that’s so silly. speaking of sunset beach, i miss going to granville island, the food there is so good and i love window shopping (i don’t have nearly enough money for anything there). i bought a recycled paper notebook there once and it was so pretty i ran out of pages but i keep it to look at

the ferry to the island is also underrated, especially when it’s sunny and you can see seals and whales? the views from the ferry are only matched by the sea to sky highway, another fav. my fav island is galiano, if you’ve never been it’s a perfect day trip it’s so small but so pretty and there lots of camping spots and farmers markets, and at the ferry terminal there’s a little wood fired pizza shop and a bookstore that i love.

and then honestly any local hike is the best, i love going on hikes with my friends especially in the morning the vibes are unmatched

if i had to pick one place though? garibaldi mountain 🥰

[wanderlust225]

More temples and noodles? You betcha!

If I could, I would have stayed in Kyoto for another day but it wasn't in the cards this time so I crammed a lot into the last 1.5 days I had in what I've decided is the heart of Japan. (I realize that is a bit unfair to say, as I've only been in a few different places so far!) I woke up early (for my current travel lifestyle, not my normal work lifestyle) and headed to Arashiyama which is what is more commonly referred to as the Bamboo forest. Though it was fairly modest in depth, it was really magical walking below the canopy of these mightly bamboo trees, with sunlight jetting through at even the smallest holes between leaves. Just next to the bamboo forest is the Tenryu-Ji temple, built in 1339 after the emporer had a dream that a dragon had risen from a nearby river, hence the name tenryu ("heavenly dragon"). Like most of the Kyoto temples I visited, the original grounds / buildings had been burned down a number of times in the past few hundred years - though it does seem like Kyoto was mostly spared during WWII. The coolest part of this temple was the garden which was remarkable, designed in a classic style of shakkei ("borrowed scenery"), set with the beautiful Arashiyama mountains in the background. I also booked at shigetsu to sample Buddhist vegetarian cuisine. To many, I'm sure this sounds terrible. To me, it was a welcome respite from constantly having to worry about what animal parts I might stumble upon in my food. Before I sat down I met a really cool couple from Santa Barbara, who had just spent a year in HK. The boyfriend was a chef, which I decided made my meal very legitimate. It was delicious; tofu and wasabi, pickled vegetables, squash soup (Ok, the only thing I did not love), vegetables in a sesame sauce -- and then they brought more; eggplant with a sesame-miso paste and delicious honeydew melon. So good. To make it even more legit it was served in a traditional dining hall and we removed our shoes and sat on a red mat on the floor. One thing I'm not down with in Japanese culture is so much sitting on the floor - it's so uncomforable and westerners bodies are just not accustomed to it - no matter how much yoga we do! Then I decided to test my navigational skills and took the train then a bus (!) to Kinkaku-ji Temple / Ryoan-ji Temple or, for the non-Japanese speakers, the Golden Pavilion, named for the gold leaf-coverd main hall. It was by far the most packed temple I went to the whole day - but since everyone basically snapped a few pics, it was a pretty quick blob of tourist pandamonium to move through. The pavilion was on a beautiful little pond, with mountains in the background and Japanese maples surrounding the water. The leaves of a few of the maples were just starting to turn a burnt red and amber themselves, which gave me a glimpse of what it might look like in the Fall. Just gorgeous. After the Golden Pavilion is had the choice to stop at my hotel first to freshen up (the weather report was still scattered clouds and feels like 100+ degrees) but with it getting later in the afternoon, and because many temples close between 4-5pm, I decided to trek on to Fushimi Inari Temple. This is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto, for the thousands of red shrines that envelope the walkways. I had no real comprehension of what that meant, until I spent almost 2 hours hiking through a never ending stream of red shrines. There was a map at the entrance of the temple which showed that you could walk up the mountain through the lined gates - there was no scale to the map and I thought, 'how hard can this be?' Now it wasn't anything close to Mt Batur in Bali, but I also wasn't prepared for a hike! The first few walkways were crawling with tourists. As the path continued on, and especially as it got steeper, the tourists started to thin out until when I got much closer to the top I spent quite a bit of time hiking to myself. In addition to the red shrines there were tons of little foxes everywhere - these are considered the messenger of Inari, the god of cereals or harvest. The Japanese also see the fox as a sacred figure capable of "possessing" humans - all of it reminded me of Jack. From signs on the path of how much each type of shrine costs, my best guess is that patrons of this temple can purchase them and (I think) put their family name on the legs of the shrine. For all the silent griping I did about this surprise hike, there were stunning views and it felt like a huge accomplishment getting to the top. On the way down there were 2 men installing a new shrine and I noticed as I went by that they were burning incense. I wondered, is it because this shrine installation is a semi-religious act - or is it because a few tourists I passed had absolutely terribly BO. Maybe both. Given the number of tourist attractions I visited I had a lot of time to think about the matchig outfits that were almost as prevalant as people wearing kimonos or outfits with cats on them. If anyone has any experience in this Japanese / Asian matching outfit phenomenon, I would love to know more, like: - Do you pack matching outfits for the whole trip or just one special day? - Is it typically one person's idea and they purchase the pair? - Are there stores that specialize in this - especially the cross gender outfit matching? - For couples, do Asian guys really get into this, or is it something to appease their girlfriends /wives? - For parents, do people judge you if your kids aren't coordinated? Better yet, if you're not coordinated with your friends? I can barely figure out someting I like enough to wear myself... After I freshened up a bit back at the hotel and had my last free evening drink, I headed to the bustling downtown Kyoto scene. Surprise surprise, it was really cool. I had dinner at Omen Shijo which is an udon noodle place off of the famed Panto Cho alley, supposedly where the modern day geishas roam. I wasn't quite sure how to order but wanted to try udon and tempura and fpund a set that included just that. They brought out the tempura first and a rice bowl topped with beef, all which looked fantastic. I dove in, wondering how I had missed ordering the udon, but it looked like plenty of food. As I dove into the tempura they brought 4 more plates - udon noodles, broth, sesame seeds and veggies and I almost regretted ordering my beer which I realized would take up precious stomach real estate. (Not quite though as it helped me cement the fact that I like Sapporo over Asai - very improtant to know.) The waitress taught me the udon procedure: add some sesame seeds, veggies and noodles to the broth and let them all soak for awhile. It was so delicious. (So good, I got almost the same meal the next day for lunch!) After dinner I wandered around Panto Cho "geisha hunting," as they say. I saw a number of women in kimonos, but they were all tourists. On a positive side I had a lovely stroll along a very lively riverway and then found a cool beer bar, where I chatted for a few hours with a nice Italian woman and two super fun gay guys from NYC. The guys told me about their one-day hike up Mt Fuji (which they said looked like another planet and I thought sounded horrifying). The Italian woman confessed that she has not really enjoyed traveling alone as there is no one to talk to -- which made me think to myself, 'huh, I guess that would be a normal reaction.' On the contrary though, I've enjoyed every second of solo travel - I guess there is more innovert in me than I thought! This morning I was a bit slow to get moving (which I will blame on all the beers last night!) but I packed up and headed out to the last temple on my list, Sanjusangen-do Temple. It was first built in 1164, but in the 13th century they added the defining charicteristic, 1,000 wooden and gold-plated, life-size kannons that flank one huge kannon in the middle. Each kannon had 42 arms and each looked a little different; the shape of the eyes, way the robes fell and the size of their mouths. It was an amazing sight, 10 rows with 100 kannons in each and all of this great hall protected by 28 statues of deities which had the creepiest marble eyes. After the temple I set off to buy some ceramics, which Kyoto is famous for. Lindsay bought me a set of two beautiful Japanese plates last time she was here so I bought vivid blue, smaller plates and bowls to match. Then I found anaother store that had super fancy matcha blending bowls, and I also bought two of those. WIth that, and after another quick udon lunch (pretty similar to the night before!) I had too much to carry to shop anymore, so I headed to the train station. Now I'm on the bullet train back to Tokyo for the night and I leave in the late afternoon tomorrow. Trying to decide what to eat tonight is going to be a BIG challenge and I realize that after 4 days in HK and even a week in healthy Bali, I couldn't wait to abandon their cuisines. In Japan though, I have had tons of different meals (all sans seafood) and I have enjoyed every different preparation procedure and every taste. ...though I must confess that when I get back to SF, I will be very happy on a diet of salads and pizza!