Kyoto Day Tour: Imperial Palace Grounds, Kyoto

After the short sightseeing at the beautiful Kinkaku-ji, we headed to our second stop that day – the Imperial Palace Kyoto. The palace grounds is so wide and so we goof and played around. The palace is closed to public, we just took some photos from the outside as shown below. The palace used to be the residence of the Imperial Family until the capital was moved to Tokyo last 1868 (read more).

Seating near the entrance of the Palace Read more…

Kyoto Day Tour: Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion)

Yes. That’s for real. It’s not just a photoshopped image of me with the beautiful Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto, Japan. This was our first stop during my trip which I labelled as  The Beautiful Kyoto, Japan Experience (Day Tour Series). I was so trilled when I found out that this was our first stop since it was a bit far. With our Kyoto One-Day Bus Pass, we took the bus from Kyoto Station and took around 40 minutes to reach this place.

The excited got more intense when walking through the entrance when we noticed the snow on the ground. Yes. It snowed in the area during that night. The weather was so cold but didn’t mind much about coldness because… I was finally in Kinkaju-ji! Read more…

The Beautiful Kyoto, Japan Experience (Day Tour Series)

So our first week at the Bridge SE training finally ended and was so excited to take the week off. It was Friday night when I headed to Yokohama Station for my long bus trip to Kyoto. It was roughly around 6-hour bus trip. The bus left at exactly 11:45PM and arrived in Kyoto Station, our drop-off point, around 5:30AM.

Since I was so early, I had some time to tour the huge and nicely designed Kyoto Station while waiting for Ms. Erlyn and her friend to arrive. Ms. Erlyn was my college teacher and graciously offered to tour me around Kyoto that day. She prepared our itinerary. She planned a schedule wherein we can visit many places as much as possible with our limited time.

Before we started our day tour, we had our delicious breakfast at the station which took us some time to decide where to dine. After which she purchased our one-day tour bus pass.

Here’s the list of the places we visited:

• Kinkaku-ji (Temple of the Golden Pavilion)
• Imperial Palace Grounds, Kyoto
• The Heian Shrine
• Kiyomizu-dera
• Fushimi-Inari Shrine

The quick day tour was so fun! If only I was not in a rush to go back to Yokohama, I will stay a bit longer. And if only I can stay in Japan longer, I like to live in Kyoto for a while. Kyoto is a beautiful place with its modern and traditional lifestyle. But I was scheduled to go back to Yokohama and took the Shinkansen ride that night. I will certainly visit this place again, soon.

Apple Store At Ginza, Tokyo

After the quick dinner at Shibuya with Anna and Meijoy, we headed to Ginza, Tokyo to check the biggest Apple Store in Japan. Read about this Apple Store in the Steve Jobs book and from then on, I promised to myself that I need to visit the store. Lucky enough that we had a training earlier this month, so I set it on my TODOs list when in Japan… to visit this Apple Store.

Finally arrived, checking if still open...

Posing outside the Apple Ginza Store

We arrived 15 minutes before closing time; store is open upto 9PM only. We didn’t waste any time and took photos. We asked the store personnel if we can take photos and said it’s okay. The personnel even asked us if we are from the United States and we replied… From Philippines!!! Haha… Read more…

Experiencing Shibuya at Night

I was so eager to visit this place – Shibuya, Tokyo. There, we can find the famous Hachiko statue (a great tale of a dog and his owner which was made into a movie) and the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world.

Inside the busy Shibuya Station

Since I am to meet my dearest friend Anna, who works as an English teacher to young and cute Japanese kids, I asked her if we can meet at the Shibuya Station. My co-trainee, Meijoy, accompanied me since she also wanted to visit the area. We arrived early so we took some photos inside and outside the Shibuya Station while waiting for Anna. Read more…