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After what seemed like a very short sleep (due to our late night laundry last night) we awoke and had breakfast in the hotel. Kent enjoyed having some western food (bacon!) available again.
Once breakfast was done, we met up with the group and headed out to explore Kyoto. Our first stop was Teramachi Shopping Arcade (an outdoor shopping area of Kyoto). The area is quite large and is mostly covered. Many of the shops were not open yet, but it intrigued us enough that we planned to head back later in the day.
On our way to the bus stop to catch our bus to Kinkakuji Temple (the Golden Pavilion), we stopped by the Sanjo-Ohashi Bridge, which is the western end of the Nakasendo Trail that linked Kyoto to Edo (Tokyo). We had now seen both ends of the trail, as well as walked a 7.7km stretch in the middle. We caught the bus and headed off to see the Golden Pavilion, one of the highlights of Kyoto.
The temple was built as a vacation home for the Shogun (Ashikaga Yoshimitsu), and the top two levels of it are completely covered in gold leaf. It was quite beautiful, and the reflection of the temple in the water that surrounds it was amazing. There were a lot of people at the site, so getting pictures was a bit tricky, but we persevered. Beside the temple, there is a 600-year-old bonsai tree, that has been trained into the shape of a boat. It seems amazing to see something that people have been working on crafting for over half a century.
After the Golden Pavilion, we headed over to another temple area. This temple, the Ryoanji Temple, contains some very beautiful grounds, and one of the most famous Zen Gardens in the world. The Zen garden was designed with 15 stones, but from any spot, you can only see 14 at once. The theory behind this is that 15 is a "complete" number in Zen, and since humans are never complete, it is appropriate to only see 14 stones and to close your eyes and image the location of the 15th. It was very peaceful and serene.
After the Zen garden, our tour was over for the day, so we headed back to the hotel. It was another VERY hot day, so we needed to take a bit of a break before heading back out. After about an hour or so, we headed back down to the Teramachi Shopping Arcade to do some browsing and people watching.
Christine enjoyed the "100 Yen" stores, which are much like our dollar stores at home, but with some better quality merchandise. We also picked up a lovely woodblock print in a small art store that we will frame when we get home. During our shopping trip, we stopped into a local Mister Donut and tried a cruller covered in green tea icing with green tea and sweet red bean jelly filling inside. It was a different type of flavour, but was fairly tasty!
After a full day of touring and shopping we were heading back to the hotel, when we stopped to listen to a group of musicians playing outside of a shrine. They were all ages and had a couple of guys playing drums, 8 or so on wooden flutes, and a group on some sort of metallic gong type thing. It was quite interesting and they had a good crowd watching them.
After, we had a quick dinner and are planning to call it an early night, as we head off for a full day in Nara tomorrow.
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Mom I love this Blog. Keep doing what you are doing so well. Love you