Kyoto

Sirius Glass said:

Our preferred travel times are the Spring, Winter [off season] and Fall.

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Once I retire, I'll be able to travel in the off season. Planning on living in Japan after I retire, but NOT during the Summer months! We'll spend that time in Canada... unless we're on fire, of course!

Andrew O'Neill said:

Once I retire, I'll be able to travel in the off season. Planning on living in Japan after I retire, but NOT during the Summer months! We'll spend that time in Canada... unless we're on fire, of course!

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If your retirement experience follows others and mine, once you retire you will be so busy that you will wonder how you ever got anything done when you were working.

Sirius Glass said:

If your retirement experience follows others and mine, once you retire you will be so busy that you will wonder how you ever got anything done when you were working.

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That is what I'm hearing from teachers who have retired

Andrew O'Neill said:

That is what I'm hearing from teachers who have retired

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Not just teachers. Engineers, professors, ex Kodak employees, ...

Andrew O'Neill said:

I was just in Kyoto in July. First time since 1992! I've never seen so many foreign tourists! Do not go in the Summer to avoid the swarms... and especially the HEAT and HUMIDITY! I also jumped on the train to Nara (about 20 minutes away), where there was not a soul around. The tourists don't bother going here, which is fine by me! One word to describe it. Awesome.

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Looks like longer than 20 min (45 minutes) from Kyoto. Do they prohibit tripod in most of the landmarks?

MFstooges said:

Looks like longer than 20 min (45 minutes) from Kyoto. Do they prohibit tripod in most of the landmarks?

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Sorry I messed my locations up. The place I was referring to is Horyuji Temple in Ikaruga, which is just outside of Nara. I don't know if tripods are permitted. I left mine back at the hotel as they were not permitted in Kyoto or Nara....which is understandable considering the mass amounts... and I mean mass amounts... of tourists. Horyuji Temple had maybe twenty people wandering around. There is also a wonderful museum there full of artifacts.

Andrew O'Neill said:

Sorry I messed my locations up. The place I was referring to is Horyuji Temple in Ikaruga, which is just outside of Nara. I don't know if tripods are permitted. I left mine back at the hotel as they were not permitted in Kyoto or Nara....which is understandable considering the mass amounts... and I mean mass amounts... of tourists. Horyuji Temple had maybe twenty people wandering around. There is also a wonderful museum there full of artifacts.

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any recommended film store in Kyoto? I'd rather buy locally than bringing new film through multiple x-rays.

MFstooges said:

any recommended film store in Kyoto? I'd rather buy locally than bringing new film through multiple x-rays.

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Yodobashi Camera had some film. Mainly HP5, FP4. Film offerings overall were quite poor, actually. I brought film with me. Rollei IR. I had zero issues with airport xrays.

MFstooges said:

any recommended film store in Kyoto? I'd rather buy locally than bringing new film through multiple x-rays.

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@mooseontheloose a fellow moderator here lives in Kyoto. You could always PM her, or if she sees this, will most likely chime in.

If I were in Kyoto for half a day, I'm not sure I'd trek out to Horyuji, or indeed anywhere else: it's a grind by train, then it's a way from the station. If I had to get out of town, I'd probably do Enryakuji: world heritage site, on top of a mountain reached by a couple of rail routes to Hieizan-Sakamoto, then Japan's longest cable car. Dotted with enough shrines to get 15 goshuin (red stamps), flat 20-minute walk to Shaka-do through forest, then maybe a bit of a trek on to Yokawa Main Hall (https://www.hieizan.or.jp/). Bus links between them for the short of stamina. You could turn it into a loop from Enryakuji itself by getting the Eizan cable car down to Yase, which places you near Njan-nyan-ji (the Cat Temple), and one of the areas where the eateries float noodles down bamboo gutters, and you have to catch them to eat. Very photo-oppy.

If you're around Kyoto Station, there's film in Yodobashi Camera; if you're up near the Hankyu Line stations, there's Naniwa Camera and Sanjo Sakuraya, for example. The latter has a lot of used film cameras.

For people with enough time in Kyoto to start looking around for oddities, Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine has possibly Japan's shortest cable car to the entrance, and has memorials to Baden Powell (no, really) and Edison, who sourced some bamboo for his early electric lights from nearby. https://www.hieizan.or.jp/. But no real reason to go there unless really keen.

Actually, just down from Horyuki is an information center, roughly the "Kamenose Landslide Center", which covers a landslide disaster about a century ago where a landslip dammed the valley between Osaka and Nara, causing a huge lake to build up until it ruptured. Stabilization work included driving long tunnels into the hillside to drain water, and one of these is open to the public. The hills beyond there are dotted with thousands of burial mounds and caves from around 2500-1500 years ago. Some are very accessible in a park at Takaida and there's a small, interesting museum.

Also, anything religious opens and closes early. Imperial properties are 20 minutes after rise to 30 minutes before sunset.

Edit: "Horyuki" > "Horyuji", "20 minutes after" > "30 minutes after"

Bushcat said:

If I were in Kyoto for half a day, I'm not sure I'd trek out to Horyuji, or indeed anywhere else: it's a grind by train, then it's a way from the station. If I had to get out of town, I'd probably do Enryakuji: world heritage site, on top of a mountain reached by a couple of rail routes to Hieizan-Sakamoto, then Japan's longest cable car. Dotted with enough shrines to get 15 goshuin (red stamps), flat 20-minute walk to Shaka-do through forest, then maybe a bit of a trek on to Yokawa Main Hall (https://www.hieizan.or.jp/). Bus links between them for the short of stamina. You could turn it into a loop from Enryakuji itself by getting the Eizan cable car down to Yase, which places you near Njan-nyan-ji (the Cat Temple), and one of the areas where the eateries float noodles down bamboo gutters, and you have to catch them to eat. Very photo-oppy.

If you're around Kyoto Station, there's film in Yodobashi Camera; if you're up near the Hankyu Line stations, there's Naniwa Camera and Sanjo Sakuraya, for example. The latter has a lot of used film cameras.

For people with enough time in Kyoto to start looking around for oddities, Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine has possibly Japan's shortest cable car to the entrance, and has memorials to Baden Powell (no, really) and Edison, who sourced some bamboo for his early electric lights from nearby. https://www.hieizan.or.jp/. But no real reason to go there unless really keen.

Actually, just down from Horyuki is an information center, roughly the "Kamenose Landslide Center", which covers a landslide disaster about a century ago where a landslip dammed the valley between Osaka and Nara, causing a huge lake to build up until it ruptured. Stabilization work included driving long tunnels into the hillside to drain water, and one of these is open to the public. The hills beyond there are dotted with thousands of burial mounds and caves from around 2500-1500 years ago. Some are very accessible in a park at Takaida and there's a small, interesting museum.

Also, anything religious opens and closes early. Imperial properties are 20 minutes after rise to 30 minutes before sunset.

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Thank you for the spots recommendation. I will check Yodobashi and I think I marked Naniwa on my map for some other reason.