teaser (and a brief but detailed weather report)

i went to arashiyama today, and man, is it gorgeous! and the autumn leaves arent even in full colour yet!

i want to go to bed, but i couldnt resist posting at least 1 picture of the gorgeous stuff there..

like this temple called tenryuji (天龍寺).. the walk inside is really good cos the scenery is so beautiful! might i also draw attention to my dress, which i bought in kobe's chinatown and which i think is really cute! haha. japan is great for such cute stuff.. last week i saw some other dresses in that chinatown shop being sold in osaka for half the price, but thankfully my dress wasnt one of those on sale here! i cussed all the same though, and received the observation that i'm getting more vulgar. oops. *sheepish* but i guess that's true, and one shouldnt swear too much, so thank you for that! haha.

and might i further add that boots - especially if they're heeled - are a great accessory to have? so many people are wearing it now, and they all look so nice in them. i do think that it's somewhat easy to look nice in boots too actually. but that's strictly if the weather calls for it, cos i think that wearing boots in weather that's not cold - or at least cool - like singapore, for example, just makes you look really silly. haha. but then again, i'm harsh when it comes to judgements like that :P

anyway, it was a good thing that i ran back upstairs to change into boots from my ballet flats (which i wanted to wear because my boots have heels. i really need to get nice flat ones!) though, because arashiyama was somewhat cold!

check out the mist around the mountains behind us:

(that, by the way, is one of the JETs who's an indian-american. she's really cool and nice to hang out with, which is great. cos of her, i've eaten more indian food in the past 2 to 3 weeks than i have in the last 3 months i was in singapore!)

i was in tights and boots, and basically the part of my legs that had only 1 layer of protection were cold (and i mean cold) but still tolerable when i was around the river. and my butt was kinda cool.. things got a bit better when we left the river and its banks, but mid-way through the day (around 4pm, compared to when we were at the river at 2pm) i had to wear my cardigan - on top of my long sleeves - to keep warm. so that's 3 layers of clothes for you! and my legs still felt cool to cold after 4pm.

so my 2 upcoming visitors to japan, you might want to bring tights (or long johns, unless joos you want to wear tights! haha) to wear under jeans, cos it's gonna be pretty cold especially in arashiyama and the less urban parts of kyoto. osaka today was pretty cold too, cos it was rainy and windy, and kobe is in general apparently colder than osaka due to the proximity of the harbour. arashiyama was apparently around 14 to 15deg today.. i guess if you wear jeans without tights you would still survive in winter - i did that in london and europe - but back then i was cool to cold half the time. i have no idea why i refused to wear tights then.. so if you like the feeling of warmth (like how you'll feel when the aircon is around 22 to 23deg) like i do, do bring a few more layers to wear hor...