Today started rather a lot earlier than I would have hoped, with Emily coughing fit forcing her to go look for water, turning on the room lights as she did so. A brief fight with the air condition controls (in mostly in Japanese on the instructions) later I managed to get back to sleep.
When we did get up we headed up to the Kinkaku-ji Temple by bus. We bought a day bus pass from the concierge of the hotel but sadly the first bus I got us on was from the wrong company and we had to pay the full fare to get off. After that I used the guide we got with the day pass, rather than the bus route map on my city map.
The temple is known as the golden temple for fairly obvious reasons. After we'd fought through the crowds of people trying to take their own photos in front of the temple we strolled around the gardens and out to the next temple of the morning. Ryoan-ji Temple is famed for its rock and gravel Zen garden. The garden itself was a little underwhelming, mostly because of the pushing crowds trying to get a peek at the rather small area of gravel with its moss and rock islands. The third temple of the day was Ninna-ji. This has a huge ceremonial gate outside and houses the former royal palace. It is in the grounds of this, with the pagoda backdrop where we find Rolf today.
From here we got the bus back into town and went directly to the Nijo-jo, the main castle in the city. This is a large square double moated affair with huge surrounding walls. It is a rather imposing structure but still not what most people in the UK would refer to as a castle. Inside were the former home of the shogun, and a set of formal gardens.
From here we set off on foot to the nearby imperial gardens and from there to dinner at a restaurant recommended by Audley. Cunningly we ended up sat on the same table as two other couples also travelling with Audley. It seems that they like to stress how good the fillet steak at this place is. And it really is.
When we did get up we headed up to the Kinkaku-ji Temple by bus. We bought a day bus pass from the concierge of the hotel but sadly the first bus I got us on was from the wrong company and we had to pay the full fare to get off. After that I used the guide we got with the day pass, rather than the bus route map on my city map.
The temple is known as the golden temple for fairly obvious reasons. After we'd fought through the crowds of people trying to take their own photos in front of the temple we strolled around the gardens and out to the next temple of the morning. Ryoan-ji Temple is famed for its rock and gravel Zen garden. The garden itself was a little underwhelming, mostly because of the pushing crowds trying to get a peek at the rather small area of gravel with its moss and rock islands. The third temple of the day was Ninna-ji. This has a huge ceremonial gate outside and houses the former royal palace. It is in the grounds of this, with the pagoda backdrop where we find Rolf today.
From here we got the bus back into town and went directly to the Nijo-jo, the main castle in the city. This is a large square double moated affair with huge surrounding walls. It is a rather imposing structure but still not what most people in the UK would refer to as a castle. Inside were the former home of the shogun, and a set of formal gardens.
From here we set off on foot to the nearby imperial gardens and from there to dinner at a restaurant recommended by Audley. Cunningly we ended up sat on the same table as two other couples also travelling with Audley. It seems that they like to stress how good the fillet steak at this place is. And it really is.
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