Beautiful Kyoto

Our first sleep in this hotel was fine. Our hotel is situated right in the centre of Osaka, walking distance from everything and we are on the 2nd floor. We thought when we arrived that it would be really noisy with sirens, traffic and people. To our amazement it is so quiet! Peter does not need to use his ear plugs! We have not heard one siren since being in Japan and no one seems to toot their car horn here even though there is so much traffic on the roads. It is unbelievably quiet, many people but very orderly!

I woke up at 5 a.m to find Peter had been up with a bad headache, coffee withdrawl I think. He took some advil and went back to bed for another 1 1/2 hours. I made him a cup of coffee and then we started our day.

Breakfast is included and it consisted of 3 choices - A,B or C with pictures and written in Japanese with English at the bottom. We chose a very healthy breakfast - small salad (which I have never ever eaten for breakfast) fruit, yogurt and a piece of toast which was white bread, not my usual brown bread. It was good and the staff were so friendly and tried very hard to speak some English to us.

After breakfast was finished we emailed 2 of our past students Noriko and Nozomi and we arranged to meet at Gion-Shajio train station Kyoto, outside of the station by the bridge. Peter and I bought a 3 day pass yesterday which we can use on most trains and buses here. The transportation services here is phenomenal. There are 20 different electric train companies with multiple routes going anywhere you'd want to go. Plus there are surface bus routes. We find the train map very confusing as there are so many trains with multiple services (slow and fast) that can get you to your destination. We studied it hard and found which train to take. We had to change once and we took an express train which took us 1 and 1/4 hours to get from Osaka to Kyoto. We arrived at our destination a little early so we walked around a bit. The heat hit us when we got out of the station and it was even hot in the shade! 32 degrees plus humidity, now I know why many of the Japanese walk with umbrellas and have a damp face cloth at the ready!

We were greeted with big hugs and excitement form Noriko and Nozomi! So lovely to meet up with them again and they were going to be our personal tour guides for the day.

By now it was almost 1 p.m and we were hungry for lunch as we were up so early. We opted to go traditional Japanese style and found a lovely restaurant in the old part of Kyoto. Once entering the restaurant Noriko asked us if we wanted to sit at a table or at a traditional low table with cusions on the floor. We chose traditional and sat crossed legged on the floor. I am not sure if Peter was game for this but he went along with it! Again the menu had pictures and descriptions in English. The food was delicious and enjoyed by everyone.

After lunch we headed to an 800 year old temple, so beautiful and peaceful with many zen gardens around it. You could smell the age and we were so amazed at how it was built with no nails to hold it together. Definitely an art of building. We put 5 yen (this coin has a hole in it) into a box and then we could make a wish. The founder of the Kennin-ji temple Yousai, traveled to China to study Buddhism and is credited with introducing the Zen sect and the tradition of drinking tea in Japan. Peter was impressed by the huge murals of 2 dragons on the ceiling.

We walked some more along the very old, clean streets of Kyoto amazed because there are no cobwebs of any kind on these old buildings. Later in the day we saw a shopkeeper sweeping the front of her shop and washing the bamboo skirting that protects the foundation. Everything is built to last. Even the cedar fence posts are topped with copper to prevent water rot. We went into some shops, and many give out free samples of the products they are selling. Kyoto is well known for Matcha tea (very expensive green tea) and they make many products from this tea - one being Matcha ice-cream. We sampled a cold, iced matcha tea and decided we would like to try the ice-cream. We took a seat inside the air conditioned store and ate this delicious, smooth Matcha ice cream.