Kyoto: The Golden Pavilion

The Golden Pavilion (built in 1397) really was gold.  Very gold.  I saw it last year with Marian, but it impresses every time.  I guess that's why there were a million people both times.  Dan and I went, we saw, we posed, we got ice cream.  It was cool.

Kyoto: Ginkakuji Temple (The Silver Pavilion)

 The next morning we enjoyed a questionably Japanese breakfast at the hotel and then headed off to the Ginkakuji Temple, which is also known as the Silver Pavilion.... despite it not being silver at all.

Someone in 1460 wanted to make it a retirement community but it became a zen temple after he died.  It was a gorgeous place and I would love to retire somewhere like that!

The (not even a little bit) Silver Pavilion.

Selfie with the giant sand sculpture. 

This is suppose to represent waves and Mt Fuji.  I wanted SO badly to poke it.  Is it made all of loose sand?  Will it crumble if you poke it?  Do they have to fix it every time it rains or the wind blows?!!  These were all unanswered questions. 

So pretty! 

It was definitely a place to find your zen. 

I could have spent a full day relaxing there. 

High up view, with the city behind the Pavilion. 

Up front view.  Nope, no silver to be seen.  But there is an awesome chicken... er... phoenix, perched on top.  "The bronze phoenix on the roof facing east constantly guards Ginkakuji". 

My "I was there" shot.  The shadows were dreadful. 

Dan thought the puking buns behind him were worthy of a photo.

Kyoto: Downtown

After our two sightseeing excursions, we went to the hotel in downtown Kyoto.  We stayed at the Ark Hotel and the accommodations were nice.  A small room with a desk, closet and two small double beds.  We were on the seventh floor and had a decent view.

Our tour guide offered a walking tour.  The idea was he would walk us out to the Gion area and if we saw a restaurant along the way, we could drop out. We met outside at 6pm.  Dan and I walked the hour out to Gion without seeing anything we were dying to try.  I was completely clueless as to where we were, but Dan was confident. I was beyond impressed when he did, in fact, lead us unerringly through the 25 turns back to the hotel.  We found a little Okonomiaki restaurant which ended up being even more delicious than I expected.

We did not get back to the hotel till nearly 10pm and I was pooped!

Our view from the hotel.

I was surprised how crowded the streets were.

It was quite pretty.  And really nice for being in a big city.

I wanted to show the awesome lanterns lining the street, but this really does it no justice.  

We did stop in this shop, but it was a bit too exotic of me.  I like my chocolate pretty pure.

The little restaurant we ate at.

Hiroshima and Kyoto style Okonomiyakis on the griddle.  

Iknow, it doesn't LOOK good, but it was delicious!  We shared them and both were tasty.

This is for my Dad!

Kyoto: Sanjusangen-do Temple

The Sanjusan-do Temple was our second stop on Saturday.  Sadly, no photos were permitted inside so I can't show you what it is most famous for.  The temple is gi-normous and took a good 15 minutes to circle inside.  There ate 1001 wooden statues of goddess of Mercy.  I was less impressed with them because they are identical- no creativity at all there.  However, the sheer number is rather impressive. Plus there were other statues depicting buddha and those were all very different and fun to see.

The grounds around the temple were lovely and fun to stroll around.

Rats, I just realized these first photos are from the Torii Inari Shrine.  Meh.

Too much trouble to move it to the other post, so yeah, this belonged with the pari Shrine pictures.

As does this.  I thought this was funny- traditional kimono-wearing couple taking selfies.

I love that the bathroom felt the need to give specific directions on how to use it!

Okay, on to the pretty temple grounds....

It was really cool to see so many people in kimonos. And cute to see them taking pictures of each other.

This is the short end of the temple, and looks much smaller from here.

Dan, hamming it up in front of the.... rock.

Pretty shrine.

The ceremonial bell.

This was a shrine dedicated to babies that cry in the middle of the night.

Kyoto: Fushimi Inari Shrine

For his birthday this year I decided to do something I knew Dan would like.  I told him we could sign up for the 2 day Kyoto trip, just us- no kids.  I found a marvelous friend who would come stay with the kids, and cleaned up the house so she wouldn't know I am as much of a slob as I really am, and I  got things together so we could go.

We left at 7am Saturday morning and sat on the bus for 6 hours.  Yippee.  Our first stop was the Fushimi Inari Shrine.  I love the Inari shrines!  I love the thousand torii gates; I think they are so fantastic!  This one was quite crowded.  Apparently it is the Head Shrine of more than 40,000 Inari shrines in Japan and is one of the oldest shrines in Kyoto. It enshrines the god of good business, so folks who want good business fortune come here. Oh, and if you have ever seen the movie "Memory of a Geisha", parts of that were filmed at this shrine.  It was pretty cool, even if it was crowded.

One of the rest stops had a bakery and I tried some things.  This was not a winner.  There was corn hiding in my bun!

There were some odd things in the rest stop walking area.  Was this a sculpture?  An exercise structure? A comedic tool?

Sigh.  I just love the architecture!

So pretty!

The beginning of the 1000+ torii gates.

I loved that there were so many ladies in kimonos out that day.

Perplexing, but cool.

My "we were there" picture.

Have I mentioned how much I love Japan and how beautiful it is?!

And this makes my heart go pitter-pat!

We had to stop and wait for these guys to get their photo taken, and we huddled just out of their camera's shot.

I thought this was too cute.

At the end were lots of little shrin-ey things.  Very cool to see.

But with the sun and trees, it made for dreadful lighting for photos of us.

But we tried!