Kyoto!

 Early train ride to Kyoto this morning meant that we got one more hotel breakfast followed by rushing through Tokyo station's food court. We got some donuts and inari. Both things were delicious!

 When we arrived in Kyoto, we found our hotel RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from Kyoto station which has been the most convenient thing ever. I bought some banana flavored oreos which were not good but I still ate them. Weird flavors over here.

 We went to Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple on a hill. Before checking out the temple itself, we went into a basement for 100 yen where you were in complete darkness and and had to rely solely on your sense of touch with the handrails provided. The girls behind Aaron were very obnoxious in their yelling and laughing but we liked it nonetheless.

 This temple was much more opulent than yesterday's but still no where near as over the top as China's temples. I really enjoyed how these towers were among the trees, popping out of the forest.

 Getting panos in areas with tons of tourists is a hard feat as everyone moves whenever they want. I think this one was great though. Yeah me!

 The view of Kyoto was a nice change. Rather than a concrete jungle like in Tokyo, Kyoto has a lot more trees and green. It was very peaceful and I could see how being zen in this temple could be achieved.

 We lit some incense and I burned myself on the pinkie! OUCH!

 It's hard to see but the temple is on stilts. Amazing!

 Around the temple, there were also some rocks dressed with aprons. We didn't have a guide or even a pamphlet to tell us what we were looking at, but it reminded me of scenes from Princess Mononoke.

 We saw another tower, less popular than the one attached to the main temple....probably because you had to walk a longer distance and up a ton of stairs....but I got a photo with it.

I stopped for a snack in the neighboring area. Soft serve with melon soda. I wonder why "melon" flavor is Asia is honeydew, while "melon" flavor in America is cantaloupe. 

 After the temple, we decided to walk to to Nishiki Market. On the way there, we ran into another Temple....the Kenin-Ji temple. It had lots of zen gardens....filled with white rocks. Very tranquil and peaceful. Tons of people were just laying on the ground in each room.

 The big pull was a modern ceiling painting called the twin dragons. It was huge. I did a sideways pano shot to get it all in to show the sheer size of it all.

 Finally at Nishiki market, we sampled mochi, and Aaron tried many dried fish products.  Ick! The market was filled with people and it was 45 minutes before closing, so it wasn't even during peak hours.

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 Here were some mini fish that were salty and according to Aaron, very tasty.

 To waste some time out, we went to an arcade. Aaron tried pachinko. Meh. I felt like we wasted 1000 yen. We ducked into another arcade called Game Panic and found a quarter machine where we had many bonuses, earned tokens, and at the end, our fingers were black from the grime on the tokens. We spent over 2 hours in this place.

 We then walked home around midnight in a very sexy neighborhood. All the restaurants on this block looked expensive, super Japanese, and trendy. I'm sure we'll check it out again.

We ended the night with ice cream treats at the hotel. My delicious watermelon popsicle had chocolate seeds and was so refreshing!