Kyoto
We spent a couple days in Kyoto – which was once the capital of Japan. It is a very beautiful city and home to the nicest locals we have encountered since beginning our travels.
We were staying at the ANA hotel which turned out to be a bit “la-dee-da”! All the female staff were dressed in pink kimono’s and there seemed to be someone bowing to us at every turn. Our room also had a great view overlooking one of Kyoto’s tourist attractions – Nijo Castle.
View from our room
We only had a couple days in Kyoto so we decided a bus tour would be the best way to see as many of the sites as possible in the short time. Unfortunatley our tour bus seemed to be full of fellow Aussie tourists. Some of them were nice and we had a chat to them, but there were a bunch who were very disrespectful and rude – so we were getting pretty pissed off as you can imagine.
The tour’s first stop was Nijo castle (the one opposite our hotel). This was the shogun’s imperial castle from the 1600’s until the late 1800’s. We weren’t allowed any snaps inside so we could only manage the gardens and one of the building outside.
Nijo Castle
Nijo castles garden
Next up was the Golden Pavilion Temple – which was originally built in the 1300’s (but has been burnt down and rebuilt three times). This temple has been covered in gold leaf on the outside and is quite a sight to see. It also has some nice gardens as well.
Golden Pavilion
Robbo in the gardens
Me in the gardens
Lastly was a Shinto Shrine which I can’t remember the name of. It was quite cute to see a lot of little boys and girls running around in little kimono’s – apparently they have a ceremony they have to do when they are 3 and 5 years old.
Cute little japanese girl
One of the buildings in the shinto shrine
So we have now left Kyoto and are in Tokyo – Shinjuku to be exact. We have 9 days left here and then back to ol’ Perth.
Leeane