Photo Of The Day: The Iconic Torii Of Kyoto, Japan

by Jonathan Kramer on

Today’s Photo of the Day comes from our Gadling Flickr Pool, submitted by Luke Robinson. This image perfectly captures the endless, iconic aisles of torii gates in Kyoto, Japan. These vibrant, vermillion arches are located in Fushimi Inari Taisha, a shrine dedicated to Inari, the Shinto god of rice. Tens of thousands of the gates form a path that winds through a forest and up Mount Inari.

The gates themselves are typically donated by businessmen – who pay upwards of thousands of dollars – with hopes that it will bring them good fortunes. The further you venture along the trail, not only do the torii become less dense, but so do the people, making the journey quite peaceful. Towards the end of the hike is a clearing with a fantastic view of Japan’s ancient capital.

As cliché as it may sound, I truly believe that no trip to Japan is complete without a visit to Fushimi-inari Taisha. It is impressive, beautiful and absolutely serene.

If you’d like to see your own travel photography featured here on Gadling, upload your shots to the Gadling Flickr Pool, or tag your Instagram photo with @GadlingTravel and your image could be selected as our Photo of the Day!

[Photo Credit: Flickr User Luke Robinson]

Roadside America: PEZ Visitors’ Center, Orange, Connecticut

by Meg Nesterov on

I have to congratulate the good people at PEZ for their excellent signage. I had no intention of spending any time or money on candy, but when we spotted signs for the PEZ Visitors’ Center in Orange, Connecticut, we thought it was worth a closer look. I was driving from New Haven to New York with my mother and baby daughter (neither of which is currently a big candy connoisseur, but we all loved it), and a few minutes from following the signs off I-95, we were in front of several giant packages of PEZ candy.

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For a few bucks each ($5 for adults, including $2 in store credit), we were soon immersed in all things PEZ. Invented in the 1920s in Austria, PEZ was originally intended as a smoking substitute and the first dispenser was created to look like a cigarette lighter, without the “head” now so integral to the PEZ experience. Introduced to the US market in the 1950s, the US factory has been located in Connecticut since 1974. The Visitors’ Center is a combination museum and store, with windows onto the factory floor, and filled with interactive exhibits and videos about the PEZ-making process and history.The real fun, of course, is selecting your own PEZ candy to take home. You can choose from dozens of favorite characters from Harry Potter to Winnie the Pooh, as well as visitor center exclusives, like a reproduction of the original dispensers. You can also design your own dispenser and select your favorite flavors (they now have chocolate PEZ but peppermint is a thing of the past) to fill it, provided you are partial to stickers and markers for personalizing. As a traveler, I would have liked to see more of the foreign PEZ containers to take home, but there is a large variety on display, and it just may inspire me to visit the world headquarters in Austria, or the dispenser factory in Hungary.

Get your sugar high at the PEZ Visitors’ Center and Factory in Orange, Connecticut.

[Photo credit: Meg Nesterov]

Photo Of The Day: Monks In A Line

by Jeremy Kressmann on

There are few visuals more familiar to the Southeast Asian traveler than a line of brightly robed monks passing down a local street. This particular monk image comes to us from the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya at the Wat Niwet Thammaprawat courtesy of Flickr user Mark Fischer. I love the bright saffron/orange color of the robes and the repeated pattern of the line of men as they stroll purposefully by.

Taken any great travel photos of your own? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Photo Of The Day: Sunset Walk

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Flickr user GogoTheGogo has taken a photo of what looks like the end of a perfect day. The image features a solitary figure in silhouette walking through the grass against a fiery orange sky in Zagreb, Crotia. I love the warm colors, the way the light plays off the little puffs of cloud, and most of all, the anonymity of that lone figure who gets to take this magnificent scene in.

Taken any great photos on your own travels? Why not add them to our Gadling group on Flickr? We might just pick one of yours as our Photo of the Day.

Photo Of The Day: Standing On The Cliffs

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Look out! It’s a long way down in today’s photo, brought to us by Flickr user Buck Forester. Similar to the shot Alex selected this past Friday, today’s photo was also taken along the gorgeous beaches of Kauai in Hawaii, just from an entirely different perspective. Instead of walking along this rugged island’s eye-popping shoreline, Buck takes us to another view high above the waves below, providing this colorful, vertigo-inducing look at the view from the top.

Taken any great Hawaii photos of your own recently? Or perhaps at a beach near you? Add them to our Gadling group on Flickr. We might just pick one of your shots as our Photo of the Day.