Kyoto - Day Two

Today Mariko showed us some of the sights of Kyoto. We started at the Fushimi Inari Shrine which has over 10 000 tori gates. The day started wet........

Tori gates and lanterns.

It was still raining when we left but note people are still able to wear summer gear.



This is the Sanju-Sangendo Shrine which houses over 1 000 Buddhist statues. We were not allowed to photograph inside but we saw one thousand carved wooden images of Kannon, the god of mercy. These images were life size and covered in gold leaf, each one had a different face. There was also one huge main image.
This is the biggest tori gate we have seen so far! It is en route to the Heian Shrine.

Below is a carving representing the past, the present and the future.

The Gion District which has flourished since the middle ages. The streets are preserved to reflect the original homes of Kyoto. This is where you are most likely to see maiko and geiko, known elsewhere as geisha.



A Gion house.

We had lunch in the Gion District. Can you guess what's in the box?

Lunch! Pumpkin in rice cracker, tempura veg, squid and octopus which was surprisingly delicious. Rice and tofu!!! Tofu was for the non raw fish eater, Calum and Mariko had sushimi which looked and probably tasted better than tofu ever will.

Two maiko! We are allowed to photograph but not allowed to speak to them or touch them.

The Heian Shrine and gardens.

Shirley's art photo of the day.


By calum ... he's getting better at spotting a photo opportunity!

Tiptoeing by the giant carp and even bigger turtles - which are edible apparently!

The Silver Pavillion which was never actually covered in silver. This place was amazingly beautiful and peaceful.




A view of Kyoto and the Silver Pavillion.

A view of us and the Silver Pavillion. Tomorrow we will be roving about ourselves - we hope to find the Golden Pavillion which is actually covered in gold and Nijo Castle. Just now we are going to try to find the pagoda we've spotted from our room window.

Just to let you know we had an amazing breakfast this morning - the choice was very diverse but included old favourites such as toast, marmalade, bacon but no cockle shells.

We are sitting in our hotel publishing our blog whilst being droned to by a noise comprising of pipes, whistles, temple bells, none of which are in tune or form any sort of harmony. Side one of the cd lasted about 4 hours,side two has just started and it sounds exactly the same.
Droned is possibly not a verb, but it is the closest I can come up with to match the experience.

Shirley put a space in to distance herself from these comments.