NISHIYAMA RYOKAN

The biggest festival is going to start soon in Kyoto. Gion festival is one of the three biggest festivals in Japan. It begins from July 1st and lasts untill 31st. But the highlight of the fesitival is the splendid parade of some floats proceeding along the main street in Kyoto on the 17. About 30 floats are built in the city. Their heights are about 6m and the biggest one is about 25m. They are decorated with beautiful textile so that they are even described as "moble art museums". Between 14 and 16 mamy stalls are set and millions of people visit and enjoy day and night at Gion festival. I'm look foward to going to Gion festival wearing Yukata...

We are going to hold tea ceremony again in this summer! As we announced, it was held in winter. We recived good opinions about that from the guests who joined. We would like more guests to experience Japanese culture with us. Please check the details below. *Place* NISHIYAMA RYOKAN Lobby *Charge* Free *Date & Time* Jul/ 3 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Jul/17 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Jul/24 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Jul/31 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Aug/7 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Aug/14 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Aug/21 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 Aug/28 (Fri) 19:00-20:00 *These shchedule might be changed. Please feel free to ask us. You don't need to sigh up in advance, so just come and join if you are interested! We hope to see you at NISHIYAMA RYOKAN.

We went on a company excursion. This summer, we visited Kaiyukan aquarium in Osaka. Kaiyukan is located by the Osaka sea and it takes about an hour from NISHIAYMA RYOKAN. The building of Kaiyukan is kind of landmark of this area because of its unique shape. The first anumals we saw were otters. They were very cute! Here this is a sleeping seal. Penguins are always popular! But I like this kind of ugly one. Sunfish Tropical fish in gold coast The last section is felly fish section. Some of them are so beautiful that I can't believe they have poison. After enjoying watching fish, we had a lunch at the hotel nearby. We had fish after watching fish... felt guilty a litte bit... If you are interested, please check the website below. They have mlutilingual website. http://www.kaiyukan.com/index.html

Hello! We went to Koudaiji temple, which is built in 1606. It was built by Nene who was the widow of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, famous sengoku daimyou. It was a little bit hot day but it was not that far from our hotel so that it was nice to walk. From our hotel, you can walk to the bus stop about 10 minutes and take the bus number 202. After 13 minutes ride, please get off the bus at Higashiyama Yasui bus stop. This temple was beautiful with green colors this season. In spring, you can see beautiful Sakura ( cherry blossoms) and in autumn, you see Momiji ( red leaves) around this temple area! " Light Up" at night holds in spring, summer and autumn. After the nice walk, we ate the Maccha ( green tea) ice cream of Tsujiri! It was the first time for me to taste but it was really tasty and you can feel Maccha very much.

Today, I went to Kyoto Botanical Garden. Admission fee is JPY200 for adults. It is very cheap! When entring, you can see the fountain. The garden is big and it's like a big park. There are so many pictures I took but I would like to show you the most enjoyable things for me in this garden. That is a green house. You need to pay another JPY200 to enter. Anyway, it is divided a few areas such as Asia area, South America area and Africa area... This flowers are called "Billy Green". I really like this vivid color! This is Banana. It doesn't look yummy.... It's cacao! Don't you feel like eating chocolate? This tree is Baobab seen in Africa. Hola! These are cactus. It took almost an hour to take a look just for a green house. It's a row of camphor trees. On this path, azalea exhibision was held. Luckily, it was untill June 1st when I visited bobanical garden. There were many different type or color of azalea. Its shapes are all different depending on gardeners...