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Konbanwa! It's 10pm here in Kyoto and we're relaxing in the hostel with dubious looking cloudy saki and beer from the vending machine...
Had a pretty relaxing day today after the mayhem of yesterday. We hired bikes and cycled around Southeast Kyoto, stumbling upon an amazing Zen temple called Tofuku-ji. After looking around there we set back off for our original destination, Fushimi-Inari Taisha.
It's a shrine with hundreds of vivid red torii (they look a bit like arches) lining the pathways that wind up the hill. We climbed what seemed like a million steps to the top of the hill and got an excellent view over Kyoto, before cycling back to the hostel for lunch.
The weather's been pretty poor the past couple of days - very muggy with light rain - but we decided to mooch about Kyoto Imperial Palace Park yesterday afternoon anyway. We then found the best cafe in the world called 'Cafe Bibliotic Hello!' which had muted lighting, comfy armchairs and sofas, walls full of books and nice peaceful music. After that we had an absolute ordeal making our way back home.
By this time it had started to rain heavily and we were fantastically inept at navigating the subway system (which is actually completely illogical) and ended up traipsing the streets (Jim without any kind of waterproof), getting the train from Gojo to Kyoto station, getting lost again, getting in a taxi, getting fobbed off by a taxi driver and dumped in an alleyway, traipsing through the streets again and finding ourselves back at Gojo (or 'no go Gojo' as Jim dubbed it). It was like f*cking groundhog day! Jim attempted to raise our spirits but I felt like when I laughed it sapped all my energy and I couldn't move. Anyway, we eventually made it home so there's a happy ending.
Today we took it easier with a trip to Ryoan-ji, a temple with a world famous Zen rock garden. Also stumbled upon a few more temples (Kyoto seems to be littered with them) before retreating back to Cafe Bibliotic to mong for a few hours (with a proper cuppa - oh how I've missed them!).
It's our last day in Kyoto tomorrow and we're hoping to pack a lot more in before we head south to Hiroshima. Right, back to the saki now! Take care, love and miss you all x x x
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