Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Japan Day 12 & 13












It's been a couple of days since an update, but we didn't have internet access at the last hotel. Well, no internet access for my computer, anyway. It's been an interesting couple of days, though. We left Hiroshima after wandering way out of our way for more Mister Donut. Honestly, I am so sick of donuts now, but I keep going back for the points! I want one of those damn coffee mugs to bring back. We took the bullet train to Kyoto and it was a warm and sunny day. Absolutely gorgeous weather. Couldn't have asked for a nicer day. Immediately we left the Kyoto station to begin looking for our hotel. Patrick's mother had booked this one for us ahead of time using some of her travel points, so thank you Mrs. Moylan! Patrick had the map on his iPod, so he lead the way and we headed off in that direction. After twenty minutes of walking, the heat was starting to get to me. Well, probably it was getting to all of us. We passed a castle on our left, but we didn't want to stop to sight-see with our giant back packs, so we kept walking. After about an hour, we arrived at the hotel, which was conveniently located next to a Kyoto subway station. Talk about poor planning on our part! :P The hotel seemed really nice and fancy. It was probably a really expensive place to stay. The room was Japanese style and kind of small. It had a really nice bathroom, though, and a good view of the exquisite garden in the hotel courtyard. Seriously, there was a swan swimming in the garden pond. After we got settled and relaxed for a minute, I suggested that we head out and see a temple or something, since the weather forecast was predicting rain for the next day. After consulting a map, I found a temple that wasn't too far out of the way, but it involved more walking. Walking there was pretty nice, though. Along the major road we were following, a small river ran beneath it. There was a really nice path made that went all along the river. Plus, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom lining the way. :D The sun was just beginning to set when we got to the temple, and most of it was closed. I found it really nice, though, since we were mostly alone and there were no other tourists. We explored the grounds a bit and took some photos. After that, though, there wasn't much else to see, so we headed back to the hotel and got some rest. It was raining the next day, so we took the subway back to the main station and decided to look around the town a bit. After exploring the shops in the station area for a bit, we headed towards the main downtown area, though we had no idea that we were headed that way at the time! On our way there, we found some cool game stores and I picked up a copy of Soma Bringer for less than $10. After some more walking we found the downtown and shopping arcade area. It was pretty crazy. Lots of people everywhere. One thing I noticed about Kyoto is that there were far more tourists here than anywhere else we had been so far. I felt as if I didn't stand out so much. Shops in Kyoto were crazy expensive, though. We did a lot of browsing and not a lot of buying. It was another day full of walking and by night we were all exhausted. I remember getting back to the hotel, eating some snacks, and then passing out.

1 comment:

  1. Robo: Temples!!! Lucky! Did you get yourself any charms? :3

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