I spent a month in Kyoto when I was a teenager, and I remember being awed daily. We took the bullet train this morning, after having a 'New York' breakfast with cappuccino, croissants and baguettes. The trains are exactly on time, and at 10:40, we were off. The train station was full of men in white button down shirts moving in streams up and down escalators (standing on the left side, moving on the right) and through hallways. We joined the throngs and found our train and were in Kyoto in two and a half hours.
Our BnB is near the start of the Philosopher's path, so we were surprised that we could actually find it and our 160 year old shogun office/house and our host, Divyam, who is actually from Paris originally. He had much advice to give us, but we got off track pretty soon after we started. The restaurant he advised us to eat at was closed at 3 PM, so we found an alternative and had Udon noodles for lunch. We were able to enter the Silver Pavilion temple nearby and walk through the gardens and look at the buildings.
We wandered along the canal and admired the temples from the outside, since they were all closed later in the day, and visited the shrines that were open. We piled into a taxi to get to Gion to admire the massive shrine there. People were waiting for the parade and the festival. We could not find the restaurant we were looking for, since all the signs were in Japanese and no one really speaks any English. We were able to watch the parade on the way to the shrine and ultimately find our way back to our temple and our tatami mats for the night. Whew.
It was 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity, with a little breeze on occasion to make it tolerable. Very much more humid than anything I have experienced.
Kyoto is lovely, unchanged for a few hundred years, ancient, full of temples and shrines and palaces and women in kimonos and wooden shoes. A good place to be quiet and reflective.
Our BnB is near the start of the Philosopher's path, so we were surprised that we could actually find it and our 160 year old shogun office/house and our host, Divyam, who is actually from Paris originally. He had much advice to give us, but we got off track pretty soon after we started. The restaurant he advised us to eat at was closed at 3 PM, so we found an alternative and had Udon noodles for lunch. We were able to enter the Silver Pavilion temple nearby and walk through the gardens and look at the buildings.
We wandered along the canal and admired the temples from the outside, since they were all closed later in the day, and visited the shrines that were open. We piled into a taxi to get to Gion to admire the massive shrine there. People were waiting for the parade and the festival. We could not find the restaurant we were looking for, since all the signs were in Japanese and no one really speaks any English. We were able to watch the parade on the way to the shrine and ultimately find our way back to our temple and our tatami mats for the night. Whew.
It was 95 degrees and 90 percent humidity, with a little breeze on occasion to make it tolerable. Very much more humid than anything I have experienced.
Kyoto is lovely, unchanged for a few hundred years, ancient, full of temples and shrines and palaces and women in kimonos and wooden shoes. A good place to be quiet and reflective.
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