Last weekend I had an amazing time in Kyoto with Stephanie, Tomoko and our great "tour guide" Haruhi. Harhui went to university in Kyoto, so she knows all of the temples and the city very well!
We took the Hikari Shinkansen from Odowara station to Kyoto station after work on Friday. Once we arrived we checked into our ryokan room and made a plan for the next morning, while having some tea. After we were done the staff came and laid out our futons for us. It was a very cozy setup, much like a sleepover from when we were kids!
The next morning we got up very early and stopped at a little restaurant to have some breakfast. I had salmon, miso soup, rice and an egg. Very tasty!
Our first stop was the temple Fushimi Inari. Inari means wolf - you can see one of them in the picture! This might have been my favorite temple of the weekend!
Here is the reason why it was my favorite! Thousands of tori gates line a 4 km path up the side of a mountain! It was amazing! We didn't walk the whole path, but what we saw blew my mind!
Some of them were huge! The writing on them says who donated money for them and where they lived.
Our next stop was Tofukuji. This was a very popular place to see the leaves! In Japan they call the fall leaves "koyo". Koyo season is an extremely busy time in Kyoto and there were lines almost everywhere!
There was a lot of joking this weekend about how my coat blended in well with the koyo!
This is a rock garden - a lot of people seem to sit and contemplate the rock garden for a while. I was amazed at how much work it must take to make it look perfect every day!
Tomoko posing with what's left of the koyo.
I really liked this garden. Gardens are serious business in Japan!
Here is Haruhi, our Kyoto expert. She even carried a big umbrella like a professional tour guide. Or maybe for the rain.
This amazing sight is from Kiyomizu temple. A lot of this site was under construction, but the distant views were still very nice.
I liked the reflection of the trees in the lake!
This is in Maruyama park, which is very famous for the cherry blossoms in the spring. It's not too shabby in the fall either!
After this we went to a kimono rental shop and got all dressed up for dinner - I'll share that in the next post!
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