Kyoto

Sorry all, I've been a bit quiet for a while. The week was fairly busy, but the weekend is when it got really crazy ... that's for later though; now I'll just tell you about last weekend, the one I spent in Kyoto. There will be pictures - I'll add them later, I promise. There will be a link to a page that has them, and maybe some thumbnails.

Anyway ... the weekend that we went, the first weekend of November, is supposed to be the best time to go to Kyoto. There are loads of maple trees there, and in the fall they all turn yellow, orange and red and it's incredibly beautiful. Also, that weekend is a three day weekend, extra popular for that reason. Kyoto is popular among Japanese tourists as well.

If, now, you're guessing this means Kyoto would be packed with people, I got one thing to say to you - you're right. Every bus (which we were told were a great way to get around) we got on was, or got, ridiculously packed. Often to the point that they did not let more people on. The roads were equally packed, meaning this "there-is-barely-room-to-breathe-in-here" bus often just sat there, blocked by cars on all sides. Top speed seemed to be about 5mph. It turned out to be faster to get off and walk ... the side walks were slightly, but only slightly, less packed.

I mentioned that the maple trees wear their fall colors and they say it's breathtakingly beautiful. That's true. I'm sure it is beautiful. But this fall has been unusually warm, and everything was still green. Bit of a bummer.

SO, now that I've done nothing but whined, I'd like to point out that we did have a great time. We walked from temple to temple, in a valiant effort to see all temples in Kyoto. There are about 1600 temples and 400 shrines (temples = Buddhism, shrines = Shinto) so 2000 holy places to visit.

During 2 days of intense walking, we saw 10.

Maybe.

More like 8 or 9. It kinda felt like 2000 though, does that count?

At that rate, visiting all of them would take 200 days. If they could be found, that is. Some of them must be tiny. There are about 3 million people in Kyoto, I think, so actually 2000 temples or shrines means there's still 1500 people per temple ... That's quite a lot, actually.

Some of the temples that we saw were very beautiful. The nature, the gardens, the views. Some were more unusual. We saw stone gardens, moss gardens (check out the pics for this one, when I have them uploaded ... there are many different kinds of moss, some are good and some are bad... It's quite funny in the pictures). We saw a temple that was almost all covered in gold, and it's Japanese name means just that, the golden temple. There's also a silver temple, but it's founder spent all his money before he bought the silver that was supposed to cover the temple, so there's just the name. I guess over-reaching happened back in the day too.

We went home from Kyoto the same way we got there, with the Nozomi bullet train. 370km, 4 stops, 2 hours 20 minutes. Pretty impressive, very convenient, and cheap if you buy the tickets from abroad ... it's cheap for tourists, Japanese people have to pay through the nose.

Ok .... pics coming soon! I promise!

UPDATE: Pictures from Kyoto are HERE!