Photos from the summer vacation

Did some travelling during the summer vacation in August.

Firstly, here's a few pics from the Iwate prefecture on northern Honshu (the main island of Japan).

All photos are clickable for high resolution. Photos may not be used for any purpose without my permission.




A famous cave called 龍泉洞, Ryusendo. Pretty cool stalactites huh? (thanks wikipedia for reminding me it's called stalactites).





Signs in funny English are always appreciated. Luckily they can be found at many places in Japan. Even in caves!





Because of the high humidity and hot summers, the greenery in Japan is just incredibly dense. Just have a look at that tree, there's not just leaves on the branches, the whole tree is covered with leaves. The greenery on Hokkaido is a bit less dense because of the colder and more dry climate, but still more dense than in Sweden.
In the foreground, my dad, who came to Japan together with my brother to visit me and do some travelling together.




An interesting car in Morioka, the main city of the Iwate prefecture.





Two boys on bicycles in Morioka.





From Morioka we took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, the place where you will want to go to see the old Japan and visit lots and lots of temples and shrines. Here's one of the Buddhist temples and a more modern building in the background.




三十三間堂 The Sanjusangendo, a temple with 1001 Buddha statues lined up inside. Definitely a place worth visiting. No photos allowed inside the building. According to my brother, one of the monks inside the temple started hitting an old woman with a stick who didn't follow this rule.




My dad eating soba noodles. He clearly need to practise his slurping skills though.




Gion, the old parts of Kyoto.




Gion again. I have more nice, authentic looking where there are no cars to be seen. However I was really annoyed about Kyoto city allowing cars drive on these narrow streets with old houses packed with tourists. It's such an effective way to ruin the atmosphere that I just had to take a photo of it.



Gion, Kyoto.




Salarymen doing fishing after work.





Swedes eating their fill.




Number 1 selling sports bicycle at Bic Camera was a... Saab! Since when do they make bicycles?




Bamboo.




Kyoto station. Modern beautiful architecture in a city packed with old, beautiful temples and shrines.



The machine for cleaning the floors can be used in the stairs as well, how cool isn't that?



The Shinkansen.




Delays are unacceptable. We're setting off for climbing Mount Fuji, will upload photos from that adventure next time.