kyoto

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Arrived in kyoto from tokyo. the bullet train apparently had lovely sights but i slept through it all... the hostel had japenese style futons but we have since learned that they were just mattress' on the floor, but they were so comfy i dont care! after our horror experience of food in tokyo we found a restaurant called donguri which had the most amazing food that we actually liked!!! as you can probably guess we went back most nights except when we found an all you can eat pizza place which was a welcome change!!
we went to see the imperial palace and after the build up and failure of tokyo palace we were very excited to make it not only inside the grounds but got to go on a guided tour..sadly that was were the excitment ended as we were not allowed into the building just around it so we got to see alot of walls!
next on the itinary was the golden pavilion which is rokuon-ji temple. it was alot more commercialised than we were expecting with souviner shops polluting the grounds...grrrr. its not as if they were selling crap to do with the temple it was "hello kitty" stuff, they are really obsessed with the brand its unbelievable.
anyway enough of my ranting, we went to nijo castle which has nightingale floors which let the guards know if intruders came in. the noise they made was like birds twittering. we actually got to try these floors out and got to walk around the inside of the castle. it was like nothing we could have imagined they would sound like. just really cool!
made our way next to ryoanji temple which has one of the most famous zen gardens. to us it was just 15 stones placed randomly on raked gravel but im sure there is a technique that we just missed!
after several attempt to find gion throughout our stay in kyoto we began to fear that it was a figment of our imagination. but all was not lost as on our last day we managed to infiltrate it! managed to see a real geisha and a couple of fake ones!! coras task was complete!
made a train journey to inari to see the fushimi. it is just rows and rows of torii which have been donated by wealthy businessmen. there were so many viering off in different directions. there was a bamboo forest surrounding the torii which made claires day! getting slightly worrried about her obsession of bamboo...
we have somehow managed to walk everywere even though there are metro stations every few minutes.
our fitness should be improving but somehow its not.....
caitriona

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