Kyoto

We are home after a very long day travelling on Wednesday and then arriving in Sydney on Thursday. Last night's sleep was wonderful! We did have a lovely time in Kyoto. We stayed out of town as accommodation was hard to get in Kyoto. The first afternoon we went for a walk along the river and then discovered this lovely little restaurant. We were the only guests and this lovely couple made us a really delicious meal.

We headed to the Philosopher's walk on Saturday 12 April and that was delightful. We were very blessed with the lovely sunny weather. There were even some blossoms left.

 We also managed to visit several temples including the silver temple, which had some amazing sand sculpture.

 The Golden temple was also a lovely place to visit.

 We had bought a day bus ticket and caught the bus to the Shogun's palace called Nijo castle.You could walk around inside this palace which was very interesting.

 That evening we had a very interesting dinner in a local Japanese restaurant. On Sunday we headed to the Hijabashi area. The streets were delightful here with lovely little shops.

 We also went to the Museum of Traditional Crafts. The museum was very interesting and a laddy was demonstrating fine wood inlay work. Sadly we weren't able to take pictures as I would have loved to have shown you the embroidery and other crafts. We also watched a demonstration of Maiko dance and you were allowed to take a picture before or after the dance.

 We then headed to the Ryoanji temple which is famous for it's rock garden. The gardens were beautiful.

 We weren't that interested in the rock and sand garden but many people sat and stared at it for a long time!

 In the evening Bruce and I went up the Kyoto tower. It isn't very tall but it was fun to see the views.