We finally took the bullet train for the first time since we arrived in Japan; from Kokura to Kyoto was a little over two hours (a trip that had taken us over nine hours on the local trains); I think they travel at around 200-250 km/hr .The sensation is similar to being in an airplane that’s about to land which is a little weird to get used to.

So now were back in Kyoto again and wow is this side different from the one we were in last time. Much more like Tokyo with all of the crowds and consumerism and such, night and day compared to the serene temples and relaxed atmosphere of the west side of the city. Although we did make it a ways out of the city to visit several very beautiful temples in the far east. If you ever get a chance to visit Kyoto in the fall I highly recommend it, even in Canada I’ve never seen such deep reds on the leaves of trees.

Yesterday we checked out what they call the Silver Pavilion, there’s also a Golden Pavilion to the North.  This one wasn’t actually silver though, but it did have a really nice garden and some ponds.  We went at about 4pm and they close it at 5, but while we were there it was packed!  We were a little shocked, even as we were leaving there were still hoards of people coming in.

Today we checked out two temples, one was mostly just the garden grounds that we went for, it was really peaceful and we also got instructed to touch Buddha feet.  It’s fun when you get little hints on the culture from people who are just in the area.  The other place we checked out was busier, and there was also a ceremony with lots of monks involved going on while we were there.  Carolyn got a couple of pictures, but only a couple because we didn’t know if we were allowed to take them or not.  The leaves at Nanzenji were really beautiful too but it was starting to cloud over and it looked like it might rain so we headed over to the shopping streets.

We had lunch at a sushi bar for the first time in quite a while, this place even had some maki sushi (rolls) which we haven’t seen since we arrived in Japan; they also had some amazing salmon nigiri. Afterwards we walked around the huge shopping streets; it’s amazing how big they really are. We walked for about three hours and never saw the same area.  I found a knife and Carolyn bought a sweater and a toque with cat ears on it (not a big surprise if you know Carolyn). Tomorrow I think we’re going to check out the south east as well as the Gion area of Kyoto where all of the Geisha are supposed to be near.

Mike