Jan 27th
Today we headed for Kyoto, which apparently takes a week to see properly but frankly it's winter, and this season doesn't offer up the chance to see amazing parks and gardens in full bloom or golden colours, let alone the patience to walk slowly about them in the cold weather.

We arrived at Kyoto station after the half hour from Osaka, but the cities are so merged that it didn't seem like we changed city at all. We headed for the bizarrely located English tourist information centre on the 9th floor of the very modern building (we had to head into a department store inside the station and take the lift up, it wasn't exactly convenient) and then began the walk to Kiyomizu-Dera, the famous temple on top of a hill that offers stunning views as it drops off into trees. While all the foliage was dead in the winter, it was still great to visit, and I can imagine what it must look like in Spring when the hundreds of cherry blossom trees are in full bloom or Autumn (but given how crowded it was today it'd be thronging then). On the walk there we passed dozens of temples and shrines; there's too many to see and you get sick of them pretty quickly. We walked back down through some really old streets with traditional houses and buildings, trying out a few souvenir shops along the way - Kyoto has lots of them, but they're not tacky and awful like the ones that were in Edinburgh.

We walked to the Gion district and looked around a couple of streets, though nothing was as old and beautiful yet as what we'd seen near the temple. We then headed for a famous street by the river where parts of Memoirs of a Geisha were filmed I think... it was stunning. A small stream ran down the length of it, with really really old houses, gardens and small fences running down the length of the street on one side, and pokey little back-alley buildings with really narrow dark alleyways on the other. A bridge led across the stream to another street, and in the middle of the road was a really well kept shrine with a red torii gate and vermillion fencing. Walking down the road was a posh-looking lady pushing a toy dog along in a pram, which was preened and brushed and pink-bowed up to look hilarious, though I think she was a bit annoyed when she saw me filming... I continued to film as she walked past and the dog went nuts over a schnauzer that was walking past and she struggled to hold on to it, heh heh heh.

We crossed the river that marks the boundary of the Gion district and dead down Pontocho-dori, a street alongside the river that dates back to the 1700s, with very narrow dark alleys shooting off the sides of it and lanterns along its length. Apparently on the weekend in the evening you might be lucky to glimpse a geisha around here; there were many restaurants and what I imagine were private gentlemen's clubs in very old traditional wooden buildings.

We headed home, visited the Pokémon Centre again after getting horribly lost and wondering how we ever found it the first two times, headed to Shinsekai quickly again after I skyped home and then now I'm finally updating my blog for whichever two people read this. I know it's a bit long-winded but at least I'll look back and remember.

Oh! And I'm not sure, but I *think* I might have seen a geisha or a maiko (apprentice geisha). When walking back from the temple through the old narrow streets, I looked down an alleyway and saw a woman taking the photo of what I think was a geisha/maiko outside of an old house in a very old street. While walking around the temple and Gion there were a lot of people dressed up in traditional kimonos and make-up etc, the woman I saw was completely different. Full white make-up to her neck-line, hair up in the geisha style, the right shoes, clothes, accessories... yeah. I'm hesitant to say it was one because of how rare it apparently is to see one but I think it might have been.

Tomorrow: Short trip to Nara to see the massive wooden temple and some deer. Try to relax around the Osaka area and head to Spa World at night.

Jan 26th
We got up at 6am to watch the monks' morning prayer ceremony, and discovered that it had snowed overnight; the garden outside looked even more amazing with about half an inch of snow covering it. We were called downstairs by the traditional bell, and led into the main shrine which was lit by candles and smelt of incense - before we made it in we could hear the loud chanting of the monks, who for about the next half hour chanted, bowed, hit bells and clashed cymbals to the shrine in front of them while reading chants from their books. Totally different and amazing to watch, the atmosphere was almost magical in the morning darkness.

Breakfast was like a smaller version of dinner the night before with even more delicious food, though this time Prue didn't have to stuff herself so full to finish her meal. We started the morning by exploring Okunoin graveyard further, which was also covered in snow, seeing the Borneo Memorial to Australian, Malay and Japanese soldiers, walked further and crossed the bridge and saw prayers on stakes in the river to aborted and drowned babies. We stepped inside a hall and purified ourselves with a dab of charcoal given to us by a monk, and saw an apparently eternal flame burning in front of a shrine, surrounded by lanterns donated (at $20,000 a pop) from devout Buddhists around the world. Outside was the mausoleum dedicated to Kukai, with food left on the shrine as an offering to him while he continued to pray inside. We left the graveyard down the other path back towards the town, seeing much newer graves and bizarre memorials; the White Ant memorial offered apologies to ants killed by a Japanese pesticide company, and there were loads more shrines by corporations such as Nissan and other businesses. On the other side of town were the Hideyoshi mausoleums, dedicated to generations one and three of the Hideyoshis and decorated with intricately carved wood.

At Kongubuji was a frozen pond, zen rock garden and a number of rooms with decorated screens depicting Kukai's travels and establishment of Koyasan, with tea and rice cakes offered inside a new ceremony hall. Inside were two lovely Japanese women who were sisters visiting for the day from Nara, and they offered us delicious Japanese sweets (yama-michi I think they're called; pounded rice cakes filled with sweet bean paste; sticky to eat but totally different to anything I've had here) while one sister practised her English. They were really sweet but had to get going home. There was also a woman there who was born in China but moved to the Netherlands when she was young, but was travelling Japan and kept on being mistaken for a local.

We went out and bought some of the sweets ourselves and went home, catching the wrong train on our line and ending up taking an hour longer than we should have as it wasn't express. On one of the trains home the carriage was filed with high school kids, and it was great just watching them interact and seeing the completely different cultures they had to the adults who we saw every day. I've never seen anywhere where anybody is so fashion conscious or works to create an image for themselves so hard. Despite having to dress conservatively at school, it seemed that as soon as the bell rung, make-up would be piled on, hair messed up, and shoes and skirts swapped for statements of colour and style.

For dinner we tried Osakan okinomiyaki in a pretty nice restaurant at Dotombori; it wasn't anywhere near as good as Hiroshima's but it was nice to be able to sit down and talk.

Jan 25th
We took the train in the morning for Koyasan, the sacred Buddhist mountain that's home central to Shingon esoteric Buddhism. It dates back to 819AD when the Japanese monk Kukai came back to Japan after studying in China, and got permission from the Emperor to establish a Buddhist sect upon the mountain. It's believed that Kukai did not die, but instead is sitting and praying inside his mausoleum until the next Buddha returns... or something like that, I'm not too sure on the details. It's a UNESCO world heritage site and has a lot of really really old temples (over 100 in the town alone) where you can stay with monks, some incredibly holy temples/shrines for Buddhists, and also the largest graveyard in all of Japan (Okunoin Graveyard).

So after paying for a train that wasn't covered by our JR Pass, we got on and soon found out we had to pay an extra fee again because the train was reserved seating only (grr). We arrived at the base of the mountain, took the cablecar (or vertical train, like the one in Katoomba) up the mountain and then the bus from the station to the town - it's such a windy and narrow road that you're not allowed to walk it, and only buses drive on the single road in. It's pretty isolated, but I think it's easier to get to from the highway by car. Anyway.

We checked into our temple (and my legs nearly died trying to sit Japanese-style at the check-in table) and got showed into our room by a monk; it was beautiful. Two tatami mattresses in a pretty large room, and a tea room towards the window overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden, with a kotatsu (basically a low table with a blanket around it and heating element underneath) to warm your legs which was awesome. There was a traditional green tea set on the table so you could enjoy your tea overlooking the scenery.

We set out for the afternoon, saw the Garan temple complex (inside some of the temples was AMAZING but you couldn't take photos... centuries old carvings, massive statues, gold-leafed lotuses, incredible smelling incense) the town museum housing some old relics, took a quick look in the graveyard then headed back to the temple for dinner at 5.30. We were shown to our private dining rooms downstairs, where there was an amazingly detailed and intricate vegan platter for each of us. It was delicious. Back to our room, a quick shower/bath in the traditional bathing areas downstairs (why can't our baths be as huge and deep >_<"), wearing the yakuta provided (so comfy) and sleep, hooray!