No Brainer

Now that autumn has come and the temperatures are beginning to drop, it will soon be cool enough to break out the heaters and blankets, which means it will also be time to get rid of things taking up space. However, finding unused space in little Japanese homes or apartments is not a fun or easy task, especially if you’ve recently acquired something new for your home.

Making space often takes a lot of time and effort cleaning out closets, going through boxes and mixing and matching things to fit more easily in such tight spaces. Many people end up throwing things away or giving them to people they know that need them. But even that can be a hard thing to do because most everyone in Japan has the same problem of finding space.

In the past, communities here in the Kansai area, and probably throughout Japan, had trash days where residents could put the things they didn’t need out on a street corner for others to see and take if they wanted, before the recycle trucks came by and picked it all up and hauled it away.

But nowadays, laws have been passed so that residents have to take unwanted goods to nearby recycle shops or to city halls. Most everyone has to spend more time and money getting rid of the things we don’t need or want because we cannot simply walk down the street and drop these things off anymore. We have to hop in our cars, ride a bus or take a train all the while carrying whatever it is we are trying to get rid of.

Swap meets are rare in Japan and garage sales are non-existent. The only other alternative is The Daily Yomiuri newspaper or the Kansai Time Out, which also cost money and take up time because the ads are not published right away. The newspaper comes out once a week with classified ads, and the magazine comes out with ads once a month. We have to wait a week or two or even a month in order for the ads to be printed and sold and then seen.

Back in 2000, KansaiConnect was created to remedy that problem. Over the years, many people have used the site to buy and sell items online. It has been a great tool for foreigners and Japanese who speak English. But recently many other web sites have popped up trying to do the same thing taking away some of the popularity of the KansaiConnect Classifieds.

So to regain the popularity KansaiConnect once had as the #1 Classified Ads web site in the Kansai area, KansaiConnect has created a new community for people to communicate easier, faster and in a more open way so that it is also easy to meet others living and working in the Kansai area with similar interests and ideals and make friends.

Visit the new KansaiConnect Community at http://kansaiconnect.com and join today. Use the site to promote yourself or your business, share information, show others photos, post classified ads, discuss topics and even post blogs to share information, photos or links to places you find interesting and useful.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact let KansaiConnect know how you feel. Feedback is always welcome, both positive and negative, although positive feedback is much better!

del.icio.us tags: buying and selling, classifieds, classified ads, kansai, osaka, kyoto, wakayama, shiga, mie, nara, hyogo, kobe, kansai classifieds

Technorati tags: buying and selling, classifieds, classified ads, kansai, osaka, kyoto, wakayama, shiga, mie, nara, hyogo, kobe, kansai classifieds

The other day, a friend of mine and I went trekking around Kyoto. We started out at Shijo and walked over towards Kiyomizudera, but didn’t go there. Instead, we walked to Yasaka Shrine and started our trek north from there.

After visiting Yasaka, just down the street was Chioin Temple. Unfortunately, it was closed so we couldn’t go inside and take photos. But the front of the temple is very beautiful and the trees on the outside of the wall down the street from the front gate are even more amazing! They are huge! They must be several hundred years old if not a thousand or more.

Further down the street we came to Heian Shrine with the huge orange torii (gate) at the entrance. The last time I was there it was being painted, so it was nice to see it done.

We walked through Heian and shot a few pictures, but it was also closed. I think we arrived there just at 4:30 pm when they close the entrance. It wasn’t a big deal though so we moved on down the road to Komyoji Temple.

Komyoji Temple is very large and has many buildings including a large cemetary with a pagoda in the center.

Just down the road from there is another shrine called Shinnyodo. It also has a pagoda with a well with spring water you can pump out of the ground just out in front. It a nice refreshing break from the heat. The water was cool and refreshing. Most people use the water to wash their hands and splash on their faces, but I was told by a local priest that it’s good enough to drink. I didn’t drink any since I had a huge bottle of water I had bought at Lawsons, but if I hadn’t had any, I would have drunk some. The priest invited us into his shrine, but we didn’t go because we had an agenda to get to Ginkakuji.

Ginkakuji was about a 30-minute walk from there and it was a little cooler in that section of Kyoto because the sun was going down and doesn’t reach there because of surrounding mountains and hills.

As we were making our way to Ginkakuji, we noticed tons of people were also heading that way. I thought that it was just because of obon season. I didn’t realize, nor did Jeff, that it was Daimonji day…the day all the mountainsides have the kanji lit on fire in celebration of obon.

So we hiked around a bit and then got something for dinner at a nice little cafe down the road. After eating dinner, we found us a spot we could see the kanji on the mountain and waited until 8 pm for the lighting and celebration.

So many people were searching for spots to take pictures of the kanji. Luckily, since we were there a little earlier than most, we found a good spot not blocked by trees.

When the kanji was lit, we got some good shots even though we had people stand in front of us trying to get the same shots.

Jeff and I had a great time shooting pictures testing our cameras out. Overall, I shot around 180 pictures.

If you are interested in joining me on my next photo-trek, let me know by posting a comment and I’ll call you and let you know when and where I’m headed next.