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.

Kanazawa

We enjoyed Kanazawa even though Thursday 10 April was very chilly and a little rainy. We did see some lovely sights but the best of all was the castle and the Kenrokuen gardens, which we visited on Thursday on a much better day. They have a tourist bus here for about $5 which is very convenient. We visited the fish markets first.

 We wandered in the geisha district which had lovely shops and old houses.

 There were still lots of blossoms!

 The gardens were amazing!

 The castle and the grounds were wonderful too.

 As we wandered around we saw this couple in their traditional wedding clothes.

That afternoon we headed to Kyoto and have been here now for 4 nights. Today we leave for Ngoya and then have a long day of travel tomorrow. Looking forward to being home of Thursday!

Takayama

We had a lovely time in Takayama. This is a smaller town and it was a delight to wander around the lovely old streets of houses with gorgeous little shops. Another day here would have been lovely.

 We went on a lovely walk up the hill to look down on the town.

 We even tried some sake here.

 The shops in this town were lovely. There were lots of handmade things to see which was a delight. One of the shops had sashiko fabric and thread so just had to get some to have a go.

 This was my favourite shop. The owner had made this quilt and had some lovely handmade items for sale and some lovely woven and wooden pieces too.

That afternoon we took the train to Kanazawa.