ocean | Life Outside of Texas

I’ve taken thousands of photos in really amazing places, but this one is my absolute favorite. I realized this as I was going through some of my photos and came to this one. As soon as I saw it, I filled with joy and pride and I could remember the exact moment that I took it.

Dave and I were on a trip with his parents in Kyoto. We split up with them for a bit because I wanted to head to Gion to see the geisha and maiko. We spotted this gorgeous maiko in an alley just behind the old famous geisha school in Gion. We had been perched there for ages, waiting patiently, as if we were stalking our prey. We spotted her from a ways back and tried to contain our excitement so that we could get a photo before the other tourists could block our shot. She walked expressionless and looked into my camera as I took her photo. Out of all of the places I have been, this moment and this photo is by far my favorite.

I got so inspired after seeing this photo that I decided to ask my blogger friends what their favorite travel photo is. Here are the results… Continue reading →

Sunday, March 13

Visiting the Yonggungsa Temple has been one of the highlights of my short time here in Korea. The great thing about this temple is that it’s situated right beside the sea. Most temples are nestled high up in the mountains and require a hike to get to them, but this temple was just a 20 minute taxi ride from Haeundae Beach.

Once we were dropped off by the taxi, we had a short walk to the temple. The walkway was lined with vendors selling food and gifts. There were also lots of statues along the path. I hope us wanting to pose with everything along the way wasn’t offensive, as this was a Buddhist temple.

Once we finally got to the temple, we were struck by its magnificence. It was gorgeous and there’s no way I could ever do it justice with my words so I’ll just show you LOTS of pictures instead.

* You can click on any picture in this post to see the full size image *

I’ll leave you with a cliffhanger. Come back tomorrow to see what crazy thing we all did as we were leaving the temple. I never would have done this on my own, but peer pressure got the best of me….