Hello! So this week was a very eventful one because it was Kansai University's school festival! Lucky for us we had a four day weekend because there were no classes on Thursday and Friday last week.

Some friends and I had originally planned to go to Tokyo over the four day weekend but the week before my friends decided that it was too expensive and would rather spend their money on other things. I didn't want to go by myself to Tokyo so I was very disappointed to say the least. So instead I ended up taking my first trip to Kyoto! For those of you who don't know Kyoto is very close to Osaka. It's only about an hour by train so we were able to take a day trip.

While in Kyoto we saw the Kyoto Imperial Palace which apparently is only open to the public during this time of year. The Palace was beautiful but very different from Osaka Castle and there are the most beautiful traditional Japanese gardens surrounding it. I actually met a new friend, Lindsey at the palace. She was an American student from Michigan studying for a semester in Tokyo and had come down to Kyoto for the weekend. We stopped her and asked if we could take her picture because she was wearing a beautiful blue kimono that she had rented for the day and she came along with our group as we toured the palace.

Later that evening we took a bus to a temple up near the mountains. There were many different shops and tourists walking the streets that lead to the temple and it was night time so the streets were lit by traditional looking lanterns, which was very cool. The temple was amazing lit up at night and you could see the entire city of Kyoto lit up from the temple. The view was absolutely breath taking. Unfortunately I didn't get to enjoy the view for long because the temple closed at 6pm and we had to leave. Kyoto is a great place to go to experience the old and traditional side of japan. The trees and gardens were a nice change from the busy city of Osaka.