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Today we actually forced ourselves out of bed early and caught a bus to see one of Japan most famous temples, the Golden Pavilion. We wanted to be early to miss some of the crowds as it is just so busy here. You've most likely seen this Temple in a magazine or online, is it one of the iconic sights of Japan. The gold leaf painted temple sits next to a crystal clear pond holding its reflection. It was beautiful to see but you are quickly whisked away as more tourists enter the small area.
We walked to the nearest train station to catch a ride over to Arashiyama, after stopping for an interesting breakfast of toast, hard boiled egg and salad. The train station was actually a tram service, the public transport here is cheap and runs on time! We met an Australian couple on the trip who had a daughter who lived in Mertham and worked for Redhill and Reigate Council as a Child Psychologist, I don't know if anyone for Langshott is reading and recognises her, she's moved back to Aus now. But what a small world we live in!
We'd headed to Arashiyama to walk on a bamboo path that Matt had heard about. It was a slight let down with all the tourists about as you don't imagine having to time photos around people. It was stunning how tall the bamboo had grown it covered the sky in some parts. Arashiyama also has many temples like anywhere in Kyoto, so we took a path off through the suburbs of the area leaving alot of tourists behind which was relaxing. We stumbled upon a thatched cottage, assuming it was some kind of temple we headed inside. Except it was actually a cottage to a poet named Rakushi, he was a deciple of the Haiku poems. We were able to see how a traditional house would have looked inside and explore the small beautiful garden, it was nice to explore a different side of history to Japan than just temples.
After Matthew had a sneaky chocolate ice cream, with Nicole trying to imagine he'd chosen green tea flavour instead of chocolate, we walked over to the World Heritage Temple of Tenryu Ji. It was a Zen temple, a different style from the others and it had been converted from a house to a temple. We walked around the building, it had the wooden frame paper doors and woven bamboo carpet that you typically imagine of a traditional Japanese house. The building looked out onto stunning landscaped gardens, with a large pond, little streams and native plants. We really enjoyed our time here as we were not sure what we were walking into.
Finally we got the subway back to Kyoto main station, the station building is ginormous and so modern. It's at least 5 floors high with escalators to sky bars and adjoining department stores. An architect has been let loose on that building with no expense spared! We grabbed some sushi and headed back to Gion to tuck in, Matt found a cucumber sushi but there was a bit too much wasabi in it. Even Nicole couldn't finish it all, we don't know how or why they eat it! That evening we decided to try Udon again as we liked it so much on our first day in Tokyo, but we were a bit let down this time with our meal. But you can't expect each meal to taste the same, we picked up some cookies to fill the gap.
We probably should just mention a drink we tried today. Now you can get a drink literally anywhere here, not only are there shops and cafes, but there is a least a drinks machine every 10 metres down the road. These drinks obviously have Japanese labels so we are using the pictures for reference each time we chose. So wanting to be a bit more adventureous than water we opted for a grape looking label. Tip to everyone thinking of heading to Japan steer clear of 'grape'! The flavour of grape here is completely different, we should have guessed from the grape flavour sweets we'd bought in Tokyo. It's a sour flavour, and not just a okay sour. It's the sort of taste that makes you scrunch up your face in disgust and the taste doesn't leave. It's what the medicine must taste like in those children's films it is utterly foul. Sadly we had no option on the hot day so we forced ourselves to drink it in gulps through our walk.
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