So today was a very busy day! It started early, with another adequate breakfast at the hotel. I then wandered down to the local tube station and took the short, but busy ride to Shin-Osaka, the main overland train station out of the city. From there, it was just the mere matter of a 30 minute train ride to reach my destination for the day: Kyoto. This area had been highlighted to me as a good area for day trips, so that is exactly what I did.

On arrival in Kyoto, I started by exploring the immediate area of the train station, as this came complete with various shops and eateries. Once I found my way outside the gigantic station, I had a choice to make. I could either tackle Kyoto the same was I did Osaka and Tokyo, namely by wandering in the general direction of interesting landmarks. This has the advantage of giving one a very thorough feel of the area. It can, however, also be time consuming and as I only had one day in the city of Kyoto, I decided on a slightly different tack. I decided to take a bus tour that stopped off at the three key temples of Kyoto, and came complete with a tour guide (who unfortunately only spoke Japanese).

Our first stop was to be the Rokuon-Ji Temple, complete with its famous Golden Pavilion. This was a truly spectacular area, complete with lakes, shrines, temple buildings, and of course the Golden Pavilion. There were also charm shops and food stalls. This area was complete contrary to my previous comments on Japan. Here, in this quiet and moving place, there was no sign of anything modern, it was pure history. Even the cleaners were sweeping the paths with rush brushes. Having misread the time a little, I was last back to the coach, which was a tad embarrassing, but the next stop on our tour soon made me forget my worries.

This was a place called Kodai-Ji Temple, which is delicately placed in a mountainous setting. It comes complete with numerous cherry blossom trees that added a real sense of mystique to the whole experience. While the buildings were not quite as staggering as the Golden Pavilion, but they were of an impressive size, and highly decorated. After this we had to walk down the mountain to meet up with the bus at our last stop. This walk would have been lovely, winding down through a quaint Japanese town with many traditional businesses. It was, however, made slightly unpleasant by the fact that it was so busy that everyone was bumping into one another and therefore moving at a snails pace. I did take advantage of the situation, however, to step off the beaten track to visit a place called Ryozen Kwan-on. This is a large memorial to the unknown dead of World War Two, and features a truly massive statue of a prophet. I had to pay 200 yen to get in, but that included some incense that I planted in the bowl provided.

From the memorial it was just a short walk to the final stop on our tour, namely the Kiyomizu Temple. This was again a lovely temple, similar and yet so different to the others before it. This one seemed more centered on Cemeteries, with many areas cordoned off for private graves. It also featured a forest of tall bamboo stalks, in between which were hidden small shrines, barely noticeable at first glance.

After this, we all regrouped at the bus and took the short ride back to the town center and I was on a train on the way back to Osaka in no time. I then trekked back through the city to hotel, and it took a bit longer than before because I went a different route to scout out for tomorrows activities. One last thing before I leave you, please do check out my pictures and videos from today, they will do more to detail the beautiful things I have seen today than words ever will!