Kyoto and Tokyo

Some pictures of a pachinko parlour that we visited. The Japanese enjoy a little gambling and it is through the Pachinko games. I tried it, and spent 1000 yen, which is about just over 8 dollars. I had no idea what i was doing, but it was fun and all these steel balls bouncing and lights and sounds. You just have to try it for yourself for the experience.
Later, we packed up and headed back to Tokyo for the rest of the trip, but first back at the kyoto trainstation to catch the super fast Shinkansen(bullet train), with speeds of over 160mph, we arrived back in Tokyo in just over 2 hours.
a few pix of the station, kiosk, and the train we rode on.
And some pictures of tokyo. Tokyo is huge as you can tell from some of the pictures. The highrise buildings, the big advertisments on the buildings and there is one picture that has a big huge tv screen on it. I took a picture infront of a pastry shop that sells delicious waffle pastries. I went here during my first time out in the summer of 2003 to Japan. This shop is in Ginza, maybe a few blocks down from the Sony building. I took a picture this time around, and had a chocolate covered waffle for about.....175 yen, maybe $1.65, it was so good.

even more kyoto, The Golden Pavillion, Nijo Castle, and Nishiki Market in downtown Kyoto.

I haven't posted in awhile, and this is looking back from my and joe's trip to Japan back in May '05. Here are some Tokyo pictures. I included pix that were first from Narita, where we landed at the airport, and stayed over night. Then we headed straight to Kyoto for a few nights, then off to Tokyo. We stayed in Tokyo for the majority of the rest of the trip.
These pix were from our visit still in Kyoto, at the entrance to the Golden Pavillion. Everywhere we can see school kids, where were the teachers?
I just thought that was interesting with the kids everywhere, on the bus, at the golden pavillion and elsewhere just by themselves mostly. Anyhow, to move on, we next visited the Nijo Castle, just a few pictures from Nijo castle. I really enjoyed walking around and inside the castle area. In the back area, was a nice garden. We then headed back into downtown Kyoto towards the Nishiki Market. There were a lot of different kinds of foods there, tempura, various kinds of yakitori, chicken/beef/pork/shrimp, Manju(Japanese mochi, a kind of pastry), Takoyaki(octopus), and other delicious fresh food. Then we walked around and i noticed a small eatery, which was very typical in Kyoto and other parts of Japan, probably a ramen shop. We didn't get a chance to eat at this particular one, but i wish they had more of this type of eateries in California. Also, a picture of a vending machine, this time a beer vending machine.