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Kyoto & Himeji Castle
We arrived no problems in Japan and got straight off the plane to the super fast train to Kyoto. And what an impressive start to Japan - the train seats could be rotated to always face forward at the touch of a button, it had vending machines, a telephone and was on time to the second. Uber-efficient...a sign of things to come!
Kyoto is a gorgeous city, the cultural capital of Japan. We got to see all the main highlights there....beautiful Buddhist temples in the forests high in the hills surrounding the town, franticShinto shrines, famous Japanese gardens & pebble gardens, the preserved wooden alleys with traditional ryokans and tea houses. In one of the temples, we went down to a undergrond tomb where it was pitch black and you made you´re way through by holding onto Buddha beads! We were also very lucky to see a some Geisha walking around the town.
One of the days we took a day trip on the superfast bullet trains to visit the Hemiji castle. Its the oldest surviving castle in Japan, with three city moats surrounding it. It´s a stricking, five story white castle, with Japanese style curved roofs and walls (the pictures willdo it much more justice that I am here!). The castle looked so different to the ones I´ve been at home.
Our final day in Kyoto was one of the highlights because we went to the Arashiyoma Monkey Park, where a troup of 120 monkeys live around a viewing platforms. It was amazing, the monkeys were right
beside us, loads of them! And if you went inside a cage, you could feed them and they were so human.....stretching out to ask for food, taking it gentle (most of the time) from you with their fingers. Rick put up some brilliant pictures of them!
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