Monday, May 9, 2011

Golden Week 2011 - Heian Jingu Shrine 平安神宮

Here in Japan we have just had our so-called Golden Week, which at Ritsumeikan equals 3 days without school more or less strategically chosen to be Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Which means that if you want a real holiday you have to skip school on Monday or Friday.. But don't get overly excited about your suddenly big amount of freedom: The classes you've lost will be given back to you cause Ristumeikan has Saturday-classes to make up for the Golden Week.! Woho!

Well, to be honest I did not do much during the Golden Week anyway. I was planning to go studying in the library at school, but since it was closed I ended up in the basement of one of the other buildings where they rarely close before 22:00 anyway. Beside going shopping one evening that is pretty much all I did during my Golden Week. But hey, I did a lot of traveling in February/March so I'm not going to complain. Besides I'm going to Tokyo this upcoming weekend!

On Saturday I did however do a little bit of sightseeing. I even had a personal guide with me, mr. Kazu, who wanted a chance to practice his English.
After meeting him in the city centre we strolled down to the Heian Jingu shrine, which I had been to once before during the student festival back in October (can't believe it has been over half a year..!!)
At that time it was evening though, so I didn't see much of the temple itself.
The gate to Heian Jingu
The weather was perfect - It feels like a Norwegian summer here now - so it was a good day for sightseeing.

View from a bridge towards the mountains in the east.
The Oten-mon Gate ()
Heian Jingu: Daigoku-den (大極殿)

むすび木!

 Beside the nice buildings Heian Jingu also has a pretty large garden. Last time I went here we never went to this part of the shrine, in fact I did not even know that there was such a big garden hidden behind the buildings.. Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took

A Japanese family feeding the ducks
かわいい〜

Picture of Taiheikaku (泰平閣).
Everything is nice and peaceful.