Saturday October 31, Kyoto sightseeing

Sunny with clouds, but nice weather today.

Kyoto

At Kyoto we first checkout the architectural aspects of the station. Its huge and nicely build. From there we take the bus, but all signs and information is in Japanese unfortunately. So I decide to mark all the Japanese stops on a map, so we can determine where we are and, more important, where we need to press the stop sign to get out. Ginkakuji-michi bus stop we need to get out. From there we go to the beautiful Hakusasonso Garden, with its famous Silver Pavilion, but its under renovation. Its near the start of the famous Path of Philosophy, that with this great weather is fun to follow. We get in some of the shops and even buy some Japanese handcrafts. We also have the typical for this region, kind of pancakes with fruit and icecream. Its a no brainer, that we like that stuff :-)

We also watch the nice Eikando and Nanzenji Temples, before going to the well known Yoshida Shrine and the temples near it. A large complex and with the low hanging sun a great time to shoot some more pictures.

We go to the Kyoto Handcrafts Center with 2 buildings and 6 floors, a lot can be seen in a centralized way. Its very nice, but also rather expensive so we end up only watching the good stuff. Its already dark after a long day and we walk back to the Kyoto Station. A rather long walk and feels tough after already walking a whole day. Some kind of fast food like restaurant, but with Japanese (normal) food can be ordered via a vending machine. Its a gamble again what we order. No English menu, no or bad pictures and we order by price and a vague picture. It ends up good enough again. Not sure if we were so desperate for food or really enjoyed it, but we ate it all and were satisfied. It was also a nice boost and rest to be able to walk the last miles to the station back and fall down on the beds of the hotel to sleep.