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Early rise…nat. We rented out bikes from the hostel so we could get around the whole city easily and cheaply, also we get to see a lot more as we wouldn't be on trains or subway.
First we headed to Nijo castle, best known for its unusually ornate interior and so called nightingale floors, the latter was made to make bird like tweeting sounds when walked upon, a warning of possible intruders, haha, and it was actually like that, we tried some Ninja tactics that we had learnt from the other day! But these didn't work and we looked liked absolute idiots to everyone else who was there lol.
The complex was built by Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1616 and symbolized the power and riches of the newly established Edo based Shogunate. The castle was great and had lots of really cool paintings done by Kano painters and these are the largest ones ever executed with life size tigers and panthers crouching among bamboo grove, the castle also had a really cool garden with loadsssssssss of Koi fish as you can see from my pictures. WOW. These are so cool in real life.
After that we got back on our bikes and headed to Kinkaku-ji temple or 'the golden pavilion'… I have this as my wallpaper on my computer at work so I couldn't wait to get there! It was so surreal when we arrive, a glimmering legacy of medieval Japan, the temple originally served as a retirement home for a Shogun but he ordered it to become a temple after his death.
You approach the temple along a tree-shaded path, then emerges into a bright garden, on the other side of which stands the fabled pavilion, the three story structure is totally covered in gold leaf and topped by a bronze phoenix. O-M-G
Next we headed to the Ryoan-ji temple, I got some pretty cool pictures here I think, founded in 1450 its claim to fame is in its rock garden, a composition of white gravel and 15 stones that many consider to be the ultimate expression of Zen Buddhism.
Although many definitions have been put forward to interoperate the rocks symbols, the significance of the garden like that of Zen itself defies definition, its riddles can only be un-ravelled through silent contemplation.
So enough for temples for one day, we hopped on our backs and got completely lost in Kyoto city, was great I didn't even want to look at my map. We ended up doing abit of shopping and also visiting Nishiki food market which had everything and anything.
Getting on later that night we decided we wanted to go back to Osaka for the day so we booked a hotel online that night for the following night.
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