Autumn in Japan | LetsJapan

Posts Tagged ‘ Autumn in Japan ’

Autumn in Japan ・日本の秋 — through the years.

Below I offer a few newly-found, but certainly not “new,” autumn photos taken over the years (from 1984 and 2009). I’ve taken more recent ones, in more recent autumns in Japan, but I thought these would suffice for this year. I may update if or when I run across more share-worthy photos.

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Kinkaku-ji, the Temple of the Golden Pavilion. Kyoto. 1984

Mist in Kurama. October 2003.

Looking towards Shinnyo-do Temple. Kyoto. November 2009.

Tea Break During Rice Harvest. Tsuda. 1984.

One of the more popular places from which to photograph Kiyomizu-dera. Fall 2001.

Kiyomizu-dera. Kyoto. Fall 2001.

On Jingu no michi, looking towards the Higashiyama. Kyoto. 2003.

Ladder. Kurama. November 2003.

Along Tetsugaku no Michi (“Philosopher’s Path”). Kyoto. 2003.

For much more on, and more photos from, Philosopher’s Path, click here.

Evening “light up” at Eikan-do Temple. Kyoto. 2003.

Eikan-do (see photo immediately above) is one of my favorite temples in Kyoto. I highly recommend checking out Eikan-do’s website. In May 2008 one of the head priests granted a group I was guiding an hour-long audience to discuss Eikan-do and some of the basic tenets of Buddhist theology and philosophy. Disclosure: I had a hand in editing one of Eikan-do’s web pages.

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One, more recent, additional photo:

Facing North on Kawabata Street, Kyoto. November 2009.

2012: 09/18
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
TAGS: Autumn
Autumn in Japan
秋、
Eikan-do
Eikando
金閣寺
 Kawabata dori
Kinkaku-ji
Kiyomizu Temple
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Kurama
November Kyoto
Shinnyo-do
Tsuda
Tsuda-shi
日本の秋
 永観堂
 津田市
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A Few You May Have Missed, Part 2.

Some months ago I worked-up a sort of “Few Posts You May Have Missed” post and promised (perhaps threatened) to do another installment. This is that. Before highlighting and linking to those few posts I want to note that I’m finalizing plans for a SMALL GROUP TRIP TO KYOTO THIS AUTUMN. It’s 90% set and you can see the general itinerary here (or simply look at the top right-hand corner of this page), but I’m going fine-tune it over the coming days and reposting. Please be on the lookout for that.

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A recent post that somewhat came-and-went without much notice was mine on Hotels. I posted it on this front page back in late April and it didn’t receive much attention. Several comments, but worth another look. I think that, all in all, it wasn’t too bad an effort. Pretty interesting and offbeat, in its way.

Sign in front of a Ueno (Tokyo) hotel. 2008.

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I posted the front pager “ ノート “ July a year ago. ノート is “note”, which is Japanese for “notebook.” I always pick up one of these little things as soon as a get to Japan to make, well, notes in. 　Somewhat more personal — for you, who are inclined to do a little spying, to read over the shoulder of a stranger, out there — from the page just below, from an October/November 2003 notebook (that cost me ¥120, about $1.11 in 2003, now at $1.31 with the Dollar’s fall since then) showing some direct quotes from a couple of exhibits at the Museum of Oriental Ceramics in Osaka, those notebooks show more personal goings-on in my day to day activities from years past. At the end of the day, I’ve got little to hide .

Bad handwriting. But I was standing and balancing this small thing as I wrote.

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Autumn (秋), a front page post from late September last year. As the temperatures (in mid-June) go from merely sweltering to blast-furnace hot, it may be worth while to recall a cooler season, and to remember that, eventually, it will come again.

Eastern Kyoto. Near the Municipal Zoo. November 2009.

2010: 06/15
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
TAGS: Autumn in Japan
Hotels in Japan
Japan Hotels
Kyoto
Kyoto Autumn
Kyoto Autumn 2010
Kyoto group trip
Kyoto Trip
Museum of Oriental Ceramics
Travel to Kyoto
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秋　　。。。autumn (Updated for 2011)

秋は僕の一番好きな季節です。。。

Note: In 2011 I updated this post with a few photos I took Kyoto in November 2009; taken a little over a month after I first posted this piece. After you (hopefully) enjoy this photo essay, I hope you’ll click over to my 2012 Autumn album.

The Takase Canal. Kiyamachi, Kyoto. November ’09.

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Autumn’s my favorite season. I suppose it comes from being a native of Virginia, growing up just outside of Washington, D.C., where during my childhood autumn seemed to last forever. Cousins lived — and now raise their own families — in the Shenandoah Valley. My grandparents on my mother’s side lived in West Virginia when I was very young, and then moved over to Shenandoah, Virginia. The glorious leaves, the cool crisp days and chilly nights, football season, Halloween, Thanksgiving, apples and apple cider and a slow, sweet transition into the Christmas Season. As a teenager and then as a college student I found autumn the most romantic time of the dating year and most of my fondest memories of that aspect of my life were played-out against the backdrop of autumn.

Kurama. Just north of Kyoto. October 2003.

The first time I went to live in Japan, near Hirakata-shi and within about a half-hour of Kyoto, or Osaka, depending on which direction one takes the Keihan Line, was in August. So I was able to experience the transition from summer into autumn in Japan. Through two living experiences in Japan and a couple of dozen of 1- to 3-weeks trips there over the past 10 years, I count autumn as my favorite time in Japan, too.

Kyoto. 2003.

Autumn in Japan: its heavy, oppressive, debilitating humidity takes a holiday, the Japanese maples (もみじ) transform into millions of delicate blazes of red and gold, lengthening shadows and deepening shades of red and orange, charcoal-sweet smell of roasted yams (still in the skin, of course) wafting about in both city and countryside. “Sweater Weather.” The sycamores that line Ni-jo Street in Kyoto, east of the Kamo River. Comforting memories of dear people who’ve wafted like sweet smoke in and out of my life — or was I the shade that merged into and out of theirs’? — all make autumn in Japan particularly special for me.

I remember one cool autumn night in Kyoto, around 2003 when I and my traveling companion had just flown across the Pacific, gone through the Rites of Immigration, Customs and Baggage Claim at Kansai International Airport, taken the “Haruka” train from the airport to Kyoto Station, been picked up at the station by my Sensei, my Japanese language teacher from college, and taken to his and his wife’s home in North Kyoto. We ate some, drank a little beer and sake and then turned in after a long, long, long day. The last thing I remember hearing as I drifted off was the sound of a man singing, almost chanting, just outside the window, pushing his cart of roasted sweet potatoes through the narrow Kyoto streets, plodding on by with his voice rising and falling — “R o a s ted yaaaa…ms! R o a s ted yaaaa…ms” (“yaaahhhhkeee eeemohhhh, yaaahhhkeee eeemohhhh…“). He sounded elderly. Was he? I think it was the most beautiful song I had ever heard.

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G a l l e r y