We arrived in Kyoto station after our short and, of course, perfectly on-time journey from Hiroshima in the early evening. The weather was back to the heat and humidity of Tokyo, and we were soon sweating as we walked out into the modern town centre to try and find our hostel.

Having heard so much about the historical aspects of Kyoto, we were quite surprised walking out of the huge 15-storey station complex to find lots of neon, tall buildings and the funky retro Kyoto tower filling the sky ahead of us, but the city had a fun buzz and we walked around, eventually finding the hostel after a couple of wrong turns.

We filled in the registration form, disgustingly dripping with sweat, then gladly dumped our bags in our thankfully ground floor room. The hostel we were in, Hana Hostel, was a cool blend between traditional Japanese style accommodation and a modern hostel, with soft tatami mats on the floors, sliding panelled doors and futons, though in large wooden bunk frames and with modern western style bathrooms. It was all spotless, quite new and very nice.

After dropping off our things, we decided to go back out into the heat to find somewhere to eat. Having read and been told that the best place to find food was in the gargantuan station complex, we made our way back there through the evening bustle of the city.

Inside the station, we walked out into what can only be described as a cathedral of commerce, a huge open space with a massive vaulted ceiling of criss-crossing metal beams, and at the far end a mountainside of escalators and steps climbing from the ground floor some 12 or so floors into the open air out the end of the giant hollow of the station.

We rode the escalators out into the not-so-fresh air, up to an observation deck with views over the brightly lit city to the dim mountains surrounding it, then walked to the 11th floor of the complex which housed two food courts. We walked around the food courts, comparing plastic models of meals and prices (where we could understand them) and eventually opted for a Chinese style place with a decently priced meal deal. We enjoyed a 7-dish shared meal for two for a reasonable price, then made our way back down the north face of Mt. Kyoto Station.

Outside the station we watched a colourful fountain show set to music for a little bit (It was a bit more Waltzing Waters than The Bellagio) then walked back to the hostel, stopping for an ice lolly on the way to combat the heat. Back at the hostel we sat in the little shared kitchen for a bit then went for a shower before retiring to our wonderfully air-conditioned room for a good sleep.

The next morning we had to pack our stuff and put it in the hostel's luggage room as we had to change rooms, the place being heavily booked due to the holidays. With that done, we set off to try and see some of the historic side of Kyoto. We got to the bus stop near the hostel and tried to get on the first bus which arrived, but it was completely packed.

A bit annoyed at having to waste time waiting for another bus, we decided to grab a quick takeaway breakfast from a nearby café and walked with it back to the bus stop. Another bus arrived shortly, almost as packed but we still managed to squeeze in, and hung on until we reached our stop, further north and on the east side of Kyoto, near the base of the Higashiyama mountains, rising tall and leafy green above us.

From our bus stop we embarked on a walking tour detailed in our guide book, which would take us to many of the highlights of that area, and the city as a whole. We first of all walked up a narrow road towards the hills, which became more and more filled with souvenir shops, mainly selling pottery, as we approached our first destination, the temple complex of Kiyomizu-dera.

We saw the pagoda rising above the surrounding buildings before we reached the complex, entering through a tall and ornate gate. Despite it being early, it was already really hot and the short walk up the hill to the temple had been tiring. Also, the temple was full of tourists milling around, mostly Japanese. We had hoped to beat some of the tourist rush by getting an early start, but obviously not early enough.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed looking around the stunning temple complex, built into the mountainside. We first descended into the Tanai-meguri, which is supposed to represent the womb of a female bodhisattva, and involved following a handrail of large wooden beads through a pitch-dark hallway to an illuminated revolving stone which you spin and make a wish. We then walked around the huge main temple building, a massive wooden structure filled with various shrines, built on large wooden legs suspending it over the leafy mountainside. It was very impressive, and the elevated verandah offered a great view of the modern city centre laid out in the valley below. From there we descended steep stone stairs (a common design feature in all Buddhist temples it would appear) past a waterfall people were drinking from, along some stone paths and back to the entrance of the complex.

From there we walked down a really busy little arcade crammed with Japanese tourists and lined with souvenir, sweet and snack shops. It was a nice relief to turn off this arcade and into some beautiful narrow cobbled streets of traditional white and dark wood Japanese buildings, running along parallel to the mountains. We followed our walking tour route along these streets, with lots of cosy little tea-houses on them, and along one particular narrow little alleyway lined with immaculate traditional houses packed closely together.

The next temple we visited, Kodai-ji, was up some steep stone stairs from one of these streets, and we walked around its beautifully landscaped gardens among the elegant white temple buildings. The gardens contained pavilions on little islands in carp-filled ponds, small expertly pruned trees growing from mossy carpets, hillsides of bamboo groves, and Zen gardens with raked sand oceans and rock islands. The heat was oppressive by this point, and walking around was exhausting but the gardens were too beautiful to miss, offering stunning manicured views from wherever you stood.

Leaving the temple, we stopped at a stall to buy something to cool us down. The main speciality seemed to be a pile of shaved ice covered in green tea syrup and topped with condensed milk. We ordered one bowl piled high with this concoction and found it both delicious and refreshing. The Japanese sweets are definitely acquired taste, mostly involving gooey mushed up rice and sweet red azuki-bean paste in some combination, and with green tea a prominent flavour. I liked some of them, but we both found this icy concoction delicious.

A short distance up the pretty old fashioned streets, we emerged into a busy park where we took another rest, drinking some ice cold water from one of the helpfully prolific vending machines. From there we decided to head towards town to find some lunch and have a little change of scenery. From the park we walked west into the Gion district, known as the entertainment district of the city and walked up the modern-looking main street until, fancying a change from Japanese cuisine, we found an Indian restaurant with a lunch special on. We descended into the cool basement and enjoyed a tasty big plate of curry and naan each.

After lunch we walked around Gion some more, making our way to one beautiful area, Shimbashi, where two streets of traditional wooden houses ran alongside a stream. We walked up and down the streets, admiring the buildings with their simple, geometric latticed wooden frontages and basic, elegant colour schemes. Gion, and in particular these streets, are famous for seeing Geisha going about their business and walking between appointments, but we didn't see any, sadly.

We walked back through Gion, along narrow back streets of more modern buildings with the typical chaos of power cables suspended over head, then past the park we had been in earlier, up a gently sloping arcade towards a ridiculously big temple gate, announcing the entrance of our next destination, the temple of Chion-in. After a rest on a bench, where Lucy thought she was going to die after eating too much at lunch,, we walked up yet more stone steps and through the behemoth gate, to be greeted by a longer and steeper stone staircase rising ahead of us to the temple area. Deciding to leave the temple for a bit, we walked around a beautiful garden at the base of the steps, with another carp-filled pond, more groomed sand and more small, pruned trees. These gardens were so pretty and relaxing, a real joy to walk around even in the hellish heat.

Eventually we made our way up to Chion-in, finding a shallower set of stairs beside the main steep ones. At the top, we found ourselves in a large open area at the base of the steep hills above us, with a wooden temple building in proportion with the huge gate we'd walked through, covered wooden corridors branching off it to other temple buildings around about. We ducked into a nearby air conditioned rest area for a drink of water, where Lucy opted to stay while I explored the temple complex, the heat having got the better of her.

I had a look around the area, taking off my shoes to walk around the verandah of the gigantic wooden temple, the smoothly worn wooden boards feeling nice under my stocking feet. I looked into the large open space of the temple where people were sitting and kneeling on tatami mats in front of a carpeted area decorated with elaborate gilded icons, lamps and altars, with incense burning.

I walked along some of the covered wooden corridors, experiencing the imaginative 'nightingale floors', which squeaked and sang as you walked on them, the nails between the boards designed to rub on their housings to make noise as a security measure. I walked into one temple building which housed a gigantic golden Buddha statue, then around the grounds, finding the largest bell in Japan in a little wooden building up a set of steps, before climbing yet more steps to an expansive mausoleum set into terraces along the steep hillside, with thousands of graves crammed together. All throughout the grounds, as with all the temples we visited, were separate little shrines and beautiful temple buildings, all set in the hillsides overlooking the city.

After descending the steps from the mausoleum and finding Lucy in the rest area, not much cooler, we climbed down the steep steps from the temple and then continued north through the area, stopping for a seat outside another temple with huge beautiful old trees growing outside it.

The final item on our planned itinerary for the day was yet another temple, Ginkaku-ji, which we'd need to catch a bus to. I could tell from the map we had that there was a bus stop near where we were but it took a while to find it, eventually helped by a lovely Japanese couple who asked in a shop for us. We just missed the bus as we found the stop, and had to sit for the best part of half an hour in the heat waiting for the next bus, which was a bit annoying.

Nevertheless, we got to the stop near the temple eventually, along with seemingly half the population of Japan, who we trudged up another busy souvenir arcade with to the temple entrance. Despite it being nearly closing time, the place was packed and we paid our entrance fee before entering the grounds. We followed the one-way route through the gardens of the temple, which were the most beautiful of the day despite being a complete circus.

A beautiful pavilion sat in a small mirror-like pond, next to an area of immaculately sculpted sand in geometric patterns and giant sandcastle formations. From there the path wound past the white temple buildings with their traditional Japanese shape, along paths of rounded stepping stones around the hillside above the temple, past little waterfalls, more ponds, between soft carpets of lush green moss littered with the smooth, exposed roots of trees, below a steep slope of bamboo and tall, narrow trees, eventually returning us back to the entrance. Once again the garden had been carefully planned and lovingly maintained so that from any point on the path you were granted a view of nature and man made features arranged just so, with gorgeous and calming results. We couldn't help imagining how wonderful these gardens would be without the crowds; the perfect place to stroll and quietly contemplate.

Leaving the temple, we walked back down the arcade and waited at the bus stop again, this time catching an 'express' bus which, as far as we could tell, stopped at every single stop on the way back to Kyoto Station. Our experiences with the buses had shattered the illusion of a perfect public transport system created by the shinkansen, but the drivers were obviously doing their best to deal with the huge numbers of tourists.

After arriving back at Kyoto station, we walked back to the hostel, humphed our bags upstairs to our 8-bed dorm and collapsed, exhausted.

We had a shower and relaxed for a while, then decided we'd better head out for some food. Opting for the safe option of the food courts in the station again, we went back there, finding the evening heat not quite as oppressive as that during the day. This time we headed to the 9th floor where there were about 7 different ramen restaurants. We ordered our ramen by paying at a machine outside the restaurant, pushing buttons to issue tickets for the dishes we wanted, then waited in a line outside the place until we were called in, seated, and served our hot bowls of ramen.

After the delicious ramen, topped with shredded pork and a boiled egg, we walked back to the hostel, where we did some more laundry, and booked the rest of our accommodation in Japan online. We had decided to stay one more night in Kyoto but unfortunately the Hana Hostel was full the following night, so we had to book another place. We made a quick Skype call to my mum and dad, then crashed out for the night.

As we'd had an early start and very busy day the day before, we got up a bit later the following morning. Once again we packed up our bags, then arranged a taxi to ferry us through the heat with our giant bags to the other hostel, Khaosan Kyoto. We arrived, dumped our bags and headed out to try and see some more of Kyoto.

After a quick breakfast in a café by the hostel, we got some money from an ATM then went to the nearby main street to wait for a bus to take us to the Arashiyama district by the mountains in the west of the city. A hot, sweaty 40 minutes later a bus FINALLY turned up, well overdue, and we got on for the long ride through the city and suburbs to Arashiyama.

As we drove into the Arashiyama area, we could see it was very pretty but also very busy, with lots of people wading across a wide weir in the river alongside the road. The bus dropped us in the main street in the area, mostly small shops and restaurants in what seemed to be a mainly residential area. We were right next to our first port of call, and walked down the long driveway to Tenryu-ji, another temple.

We opted for the garden only ticket at Tenryu-ji, happy to see the immaculate temple buildings from the outside, and had another lovely but hot stroll around more perfectly manicured gardens, with a large pond right in front of the main temple building with a view to the steep green hills behind being a central feature. From the gardens, we exited into a fantastic, otherworldly bamboo forest, following a paved path through it for a bit.

We then found ourselves at the entrance to another garden which I had read about in our guide book, surrounding Okochi-sanso Villa. The gardens had been designed by a famous actor from samurai films, and we decided to go in and have a look. The gardens turned out to be some of the most beautiful we had visited, with paths of rounded stepping stones twisting around the hillsides among trees and bushes, past little shrines and small buildings with sides open to the hillside below, offering views for miles over the city and the mountains on its far side. There was a smooth lawn with a postcard perfect traditional tea-house and a little open-sided tearoom where we got a bowl of cold green tea and a little cake, with a view out through the open sides of the building to the bamboo forest below.

After our tea we left the garden and walked back down through the bamboo forest to the main street in Arashiyama, where we had a lunch at an Italian style cafe. We then crossed the road to try and catch another number 11 bus further north to another temple. We stood in the sweltering heat for another good 40 minutes before a bus finally turned up. They were supposed to be every 20 minutes. Highly frustrated at spending most of our day waiting for buses, we rode this one through more suburbs until we reached a depot and had to wait another 20 minutes to catch the bus which continued in the right direction. Finally we arrived at the Kinkaku-ji temple, about 20 minutes before it closed.

Despite it being near closing this temple was also busy, but we had a really nice walk around its gardens, which calmed me down considerably after our bus debacle. The light in the late afternoon was perfect for strolling around the gardens, particularly for viewing the centrepiece of this particular temple, a golden pavilion set in a large reflective pond. Although only a reconstruction from the 1950s, the pavilion looked resplendent, its gold leaf-covered sides shimmering in the warm afternoon light.

We circled the rest of the temple grounds then made our way back to the bus stop and caught a final bus back to downtown Kyoto, crossing once again into Gion. We got off the bus beside a bridge, and admired the view along the river running through the area. A wide, gravelled promenade ran alongside the river below us with the wooden balconies of restaurants on the street above jutting out above it. The area was filled with some smart 19th century-looking buildings in amongst the more modern construction.

We walked around Gion a bit, returning to Shimbashi to see if we could spot any Geisha but again having no luck. We stopped off at an Irish bar in the 2nd floor of a building for a rest before crossing the bridge, descending the steps and walking up the promenade along the river. The area was very busy with people out for the evening but it was a nice walk between the warmly lit restaurant balconies and trees strung with fairy lights on the river side of the pathway.

Climbing up some steps at a bridge further up the river, we found ourselves in the busy modern downtown area. We located a cheap restauarant we'd heard was quite good and had some dinner there, before walking back through the bustling streets lit up with neon towards the hostel.

The air was once again hot and sticky in the evening, so we were glad to get back to the hostel and put on the air conditioning in the room. After cooling down, we went down to the common room of the hostel for a bit, but finding it a bit too warm soon returned, after a shower, to our cool bedroom before heading to bed.

On our last morning in Kyoto we got up early, hoping to catch a train to our next destination as soon as possible, packed up our bags, then caught a bus (thankfully promptly and on time) to the station. We booked some tickets for the next train to Hida Takayama which was in about 15 minutes, then tore through the station to get the train. We got to the platform with a few minutes to spare, so I nipped into a kiosk to buy some bento boxes for us to munch on the journey.

Unfortunately, when I was trying to show Lucy a poster displaying the bento boxes I'd bought, I turned round, not realising she was right behind me, and half stepped-on, half kicked her bare sandalled toes, bending the nail back on her big toe and causing her no small amount of pain. I couldn't do much until the train arrived a few minutes later, but then carried her bags on board and helped administer some first aid as we got underway on our journey. The shinkansen soon arrived in Nagoya, where we had to change to a slower train. Lucy's toe was feeling a bit better so we managed to get to the train and were soon on our way to Hida Takayama.