Jan 30
Today we went to Kyoto for the second time, taking advantage of the ¥500 all day unlimited bus pass to see some of the sights that are more spread out around the city; while Kyoto’s host to all sorts of world heritage sites, they’re not the easiest to get to, but the bus and public transport system is GODLY so we got our way around them.

We started off with a breakfast in Shinsekai of toast with butter, a hardboiled egg (sitting in its shell on the plate which was a bit bizarre), and lemon tea… walking back from the café, a random old man grabbed my arm, asked me where I was from, patted my arm and walked off. O_o” On the train there a little girl was staring at me, I waved back and she became embarrassed and hid in her mum’s lap for the rest of the journey. On the bus to our first site, we passed under the largest Torii gate in the world spread out over the road. We then started off the day with Ginkakuji, or the Silver Pavilion, which has beautiful gardens and raked pebble Zen Buddhist gardens; on our way out at the gift shop we ran into a Belarusian lady that we’d been talking to next to the enlightenment hole at Nara, with her Polish husband in toe. What are the odds of that. O_o”

After sharing a delicious chocolate and ice-cream crèpe (which Prue managed to smear on her face), we headed to Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, one of the most famous sites in Japan; it was packed out – though it was beautiful, it looked almost tacky. After that we tried to get to the Ryoanji (sp?), a temple with a famous Zen rock garden of 15 stones arranged randomly, but it was closed until late February. Sad panda. =(

‘Twas getting late and so we went back to Kyoto station to try and get a bus South to a famous temple lined with 4km of Torii gates and stone foxes along its entrance, but the bus was half an hour away at least, it was cold, and the train ride home beckoned. After the shinkansen home, we came home, got delicious rice and beef again from the fast food place, and are now doing washing. Joyous. Photos to come to facebook by tomorrow night.