We took our shoes off and toured many of the buildings in the temple complex, which was really interesting. No pictures allowed inside, but there were lots of historic artifacts and artwork in addition to elaborate shrines. The grounds were meticulously cared for and it was a great place to spend a morning.
The crowds were pretty intense. There were tons of Chinese and Japanese tourists arriving in big buses, so most of the good photo areas were pretty packed:
I particularly like that one white guy towering over everyone. After enjoying some tea and snacks at Eikando, we continued walking north along Philosopher's Path. Unfortunately this was the point at which we starting seeing giant hornets (we were near the woods), so the walk was a little scary. We made it up to Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion) unharmed and took a nice walk around the grounds. There was a very beautiful sand garden, "the sea of silver sand":
The temple itself is not at all silver, but still quite pretty:
From there we took a cab back to the downtown area (surprisingly cheap cab!) to grab some lunch. We stopped by Issen Yoshoku, a very odd little restaurant. Okonomiyaki is a food found in many regions of Japan, with each area putting its own spin on the dish. This place had a very delicious Kyoto-style okonomiyaki, which was similar to an omelet. Unfortunately I was so hungry that I devoured it without taking a picture!
Our final temple destination was the very famous Kinkaku-ji, or Golden Pavilion. It took two subway rides and a cab ride to get to, but it was totally worth it. We happened to arrive just before closing (and sunset), so the place was very pleasantly deserted. We took about a million pictures of this beautiful place:
We spent the rest of the night hanging out around Kyoto, eating and drinking. We first paid a visit to a cat cafe, which is exactly what it sounds like. There are a number of these around major cities and they rely on the fact that people want to play with cats but can't have them in their small apartments. So, they pay money to hang out in a room full of cats. It was pretty enjoyable, though the cats were very sleepy and didn't pay any attention to us. Mostly it was just Japanese people taking pictures of sleeping cats. I think Tommy took some pictures that I can post at some point.
For dinner, we stopped by Mos Burger for some interesting fast food. I had a "burger" made of shrimp with a bun made of rice. It was actually really yummy! We grabbed some beer at a bar located on the eighth floor of a building, giving us a lovely view of the city. At night many of the temples light their grounds up, and we were able to see a few of these from the bar. Great way to end the day!
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