Finally Here! My First Full Day in Kyoto.

Hey guys!

Sorry! It took me forever to find a way to access the internet in my Hotel in Kyoto. But I'm finally here! 8D

For the sake of time (and because I'm really tired) I'm going to skip over talking about how the travel went. In short: It was really, really long (About 27 hours total) and not that eventful. The most blissful part of travel day was when I finally got to used to hotel shower. So really, it's nothing to be too interested in.


Kyoto however has been full of awesome experiences!

 

 

 

 

My group at breakfast this morning.

My breakfast, in case you were interested.

We started off the day with a hotel buffet breakfast, then we headed out at 8:30am for the Shinto shrine down the street.

We were the only one's there at the time, so we got to take turns ringing the bell and praying at the shrine. The shrine was beautiful, and was decorated mostly by statues of cows. I suppose the Kami who lived at the shrine must have some connection to them.

This is the fountain where visitors are supposed to cleanse themselves as they enter.

The cow kami the shrine was honoring.

At a shinto shrine like this one, you are supposed to ring the large bell attached to the rope at the gate. This is to let the resident kami know that you are there. Then you bow twice, clap your hands twice, and bow again before walking away. People often pray at local shrines like this for small things, such as good luck on exams or personal wishes. Shrines like this one can be found on any given street, tucked behind high wooden walls and gates.

 

 

Like this.

After we visited this local shrine, we set off on a bus towards the "Philosopher's Path" which would take us to Ginkakuji, The Temple of the Silver Pavilion.The Philosopher's Path was a lovely long stone walk way along a canal. It past by a lot of beautiful houses and gardens, and it was lined by Sakura trees. Unfortunately it's much too early for these trees to be in bloom, but the walk was still very pretty.

Get ready for a picture dump tour of the place!

The beginning of the Philosopher's Path.

If only all those trees were in bloom!

There were stone bridges like this one every now and then along the canal.

Some of the mountains.

This path is one of the places I know my mom an dad would love. My dad would like the river and mom would love the a lot of the houses. They both would love the mountain views.

A street-side shop along the path toward Ginkakuji Temple.

Roofs of the temples out-buildings peeking up over the wall.

The gate to the temple.

One of the beautiful out buildings there.

Part of the zen rock garden near the temple.

Another out building.

The Philosopher's Path eventually leads out to Ginkakuji Temple (The Temple of the Silver Pavilion.)

This Zen temple was built in the 1460's, originally as a retirement villa for a shogun. It was originally supposed to be decked out in silver plating, but that idea never made it into reality, and instead the structure stayed simple wood.

A small shrine to a music kami beside the temple.

I was able to pray at this small shrine just like we did at the large one in town.

The rock garden beside the temple

The pools around the temple

The temple and part of Kyoto from above.

I really couldn't believe this view. None of my pictures really do it justice.

A last look at the temple.

After we visited the temple, we hoped back on the Philosopher's Path and headed towards a bus stop.

It's really hard to limit myself with pictures.

I took so many of the houses we past.

I took almost 500 pictures this day. Don't judge.

Little family shrine.

We got some blooms here!

Along this leg of the walk, we had my personal favorite encounter of the day...

Kitties!

 There were these two cats resting on a bench! Dr. Huang told us that Kyoto had a large stray cat population, and that these cats were probably homeless. They were incredible friendly and comfortable towards people for strays. In fact, when I called this one, it got up, came right over and hopped right up on to my knee into my coat.

So how am I going to get this cat past customs?

Then, when my friend had moved on to do other cat things, we found a whole family of cats!

This one's a Japanese Bobtail!

 Tearing ourselves away from the cats, we continued down the path toward a huge Buddhist Temple.

But first, an orange tree!

Front gate.

Here it is, isn't it huge?

Our group from behind.

Meeeegan.

Inside the darkened temple.

 After that, we stopped to have some free time for lunch and shopping in Kyoto. Our group ended up shosing to eat at a small noodle restaurant. We took our shoes off and knelt on pillows at traditional tables. It was fun, delicious and not very expensive at all.

Our first Japanese restaurant!

Megan and Bridgette at the table.

The selection of noddles and such offered.

Finally we went and saw Kinkauji, The Golden Pavilion Temple.

There, we also got the unique opportunity to see Geisha!

The one blurry picture Megan was able to snap of a Geisha.

This was REALLY cool, as Geisha are not only expensive to hire, but they are an incredibly ancient and famous part of Japanese culture and history. It was really awesome.

The last we saw before we took the bus back to the Palace side hotel was this famous Zen rock garden, where we were able to sit, relax and mediate for a few minutes.

So, I'm going to leave you guys with that moment of Zen, because I need to get in the shower now and go to breakfast. It's time to begin day two in Kyoto! Please leave comments, I'll try and respond to them as soon as I can!

Sayonara!