Kyoto

I could say a lot about Kyoto. We saw a lot in Kyoto. It's probably my favorite city in Japan. There's so many old historical buildings and hidden treasures in this city. We headed out from Nagoya and jumped on a Shinkansen to Kyoto Sunday afternoon.

We started off the trip with having trouble finding the hostel. We seemed to have forgotten to print off the directions from the internet. We had the address, but Japanese addresses are probably the lamest piece of information in the world. We stopped at an information booth in the subway station. They explained all these directions and I walked away nodding and thanking them without a clue as to what they said. But then things they said slowly started appearing.

I don't know where we are, but we're one step closer.

We eventually made it to our hostel. We jumped on a bus and went to Ginkakuji, the Pavilion of the Silver Temple (which isn't actually silver). The actual building isn't all that impressive, but the garden was pretty. We tried to figure out how they built the sand garden in front of the building. It was so tempting to throw something to mess it up, but we didn't. We walked from there along the Philosopher's Path...and we tried to be philosophical but we ended up taking lots of pictures and found a temple at the end of path. We made our way back to Kyoto Station and ate Chinese food in the basement of a department store. Since we live in Japan, it's not really special for us to eat Japanese food. It was more special to eat Chinese food. And it sure was delicious.

The next morning we woke up early and got out the door before 8:30 (impressive, right?). We wanted to find the bamboo forest. Where? Somewhere in Arashiyama, but we had no idea exactly where. We got on a train heading in the right direction. No idea where to go from there. We wandered the streets. Then we stumbled upon Tenryuji. I would've taken a picture inside, except we couldn't. It was a temple with a dragon painted on the ceiling and its eyes follow you. Like the Mona Lisa, except a dragon on a ceiling. However, the garden was breathtaking. Totally unexpectedly stumbled upon the temple and a fantastic chance to see another World Heritage Site.

I don't know where we are, but we're one step closer.

Eventually we found the bamboo forest. It was magnificent. Bamboo was so tall and you could hear the wind flying through the leaves and they gently swayed. It was beautifully peaceful...minus the massive number of students visiting on their school trip.

Then off to Kinkakuji, Pavilion of the Golden Temple (which is actually gold). Also had a beautiful garden. It was probably the most crowded place we went to on our trip. But it was a beautiful day and it was perfect for picture taking. We also were there after lunch, so it was crowded. But we got some good shots and nice chance to wander through the gardens as well.

From Kinkakuji, we went to Fushimi Inari. No one in my office had any idea what I was talking about when I mentioned this place. If you've seen the movie, "Memoirs of a Geisha," you'll know what I'm talking about. At the very beginning of the movie, the girl is running through what seems like an endless maze of red tori gates. Well, we went there. And it is endless. The guidebook we had said it would take 2-3 hours to walk the entire thing. We were ambitious and started off around sunset...and realized it was uphill. Awkwardly spaced steps...for 4 kilometers. We didn't walk all of it (good idea) but we got to see most of them. It was AMAZING. And ridiculous. Just a lot to take in.

Tuesday morning we got up early again and headed out to Kiyomizudera. I take back my earlier statement. This was the most crowded place we went to on our trip. It made me a tad nervous having so many people on an old wooden temple. It wouldn't have bothered me if the temple was like 5 feet off the ground like they usually are. But Kiyomizudera is famous because it seems like you're floating above the forest. We were quite high. We leisurely made our way down the crowded street and found our souvenirs and grabbed a green tea cream puff (delicious!).

By Tuesday afternoon, we were on another train to Kobe!