Tuesday 23 March 2010

Kyoto day 2

Today we got up around 9 and after showering and getting ready we went to buy breakfast (onigiri), then we went to Ginkakuji (the silver temple). I promised to take a lot of pictures when in Kyoto but unfortunately my camera died this day :P So I had to do with my mobile camera, which wasn't of much use. I should have brought my Swedish mobile too, at least that one has a decent camera with flash and everything. However, Ginkakuji ended up being a kind of disappointment, because unlike the golden one this wasn't silver at all. Might be because silver darkens that it didn't look silver, but the the rooftops of all the houses surrounding the temple were silver :/ We didn't get it :P
The area around Ginkakuji had beautiful nature and we walked around there for a while before continuing to the Kiyomizu Temple. This was just that - a temple. Kyoto has a lot of those. I saw many and I didn't even get close to half of them.

We continuted to Sanjuusangendo Temple, which was incredible. It was such a disappointment that cameras weren't allowed inside :( It's a huge one-hall temple were a thousand Buddhas are lined up on either side of a huge Buddha. On front of those one thousand Buddhas on each side are Japanese Shinto-Buddhistic gods. I don't think my eyes have ever been bigger.

After that we went to Fushimi Inari Shrine, which has a lot of "gates" and foxes. We walked through the gate-tunnels so if we're going to believe the belief we are now really blessed ;) We never found out why they even built that many gates.
We wanted to go to yet another temple but by the time we got there it was after 4pm and the temple was closed. So we turned around and went back to the guest house. By then it had gotten really windy and really cold. None of us were hungry by the time we got back and we simply decided not to eat since we didn't want to leave the warmth of the house. So we spent the evening watching Japanese TV, eating sweets and hanging out with the other people in the guest house. I mostly with an American girl from Alaska and Chappie with another Taiwanese girl.

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