We made it to Kyoto on Sunday afternoon after a 3 hour bullet train ride from Tokyo. Brooke and I got Green Car tickets for our Japan Rail Pass, so we were riding in style. It was very comfortable!
Our first day in Kyoto was the heavy walking day. On top of that, the weather got much cooler than we expected. It never reached 50 on Monday, which made for cold walking!
However, we saw some amazing things. Our first stop of Sanjusangen-do. Very cool, but unable to take pictures! From there we had the longest walk of the day, so we cabbed it to Kiyomizu-dera on a hill overlooking Kyoto city. What amazing views! And the colors of the trees were spectacular. Here's a photo of Brooke and I in front of the torii that greets you at the entrance.
We again headed north through the city to Yasaka-jinja and Nanzen-ji. Each place was amazingly decorated in the Japanese maple trees that are all shades of yellow and red. Absolutely beautiful. After that we had an amazing lunch at a place called Hinode, boiled pot soba noodles. I had the chicken and she had the shrimp. The place was packed! Always a good sign for a restaurant on vacation.
Final stop of the day was Ginkaku-ji, or the silver temple. It was to be guilded in silver, but they never got around to it! So it remains wood. But this was the absolute best way to finish the day. Watching the sun set over Kyoto on the hill overlooking Ginkaku-ji was amazing.
That evening we had a great izakaya dinner with Simon, Masami, Andy, and Saul in downtown Kyoto. A very cool place.
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