hey all,
I just returned from the Kyoto trip, and I really doubt that I can do it justice right now. Michi and I saw some amazing things, ate some scrumptious food, fought, made up, and in general had a good time.
You can find the pictures here. I'll need to reverse engineer an itinerary from the order of the pictures, but the general gist was : Day 1 seeing Kinkakuji, and several other temples in that area; Day 2 seeing Sanjusangendo, Kiyomizudera, and several other temples and famous streets in that area; Day 3 seeing Nanzenji, walking the philosopher's road, seeing Ichijoji-Sagarimatsu, Shisendo, and Manshuin. Ichijoji-Sagarimatsu is where Miyamoto Musashi supposedly fought (and defeated) over 70 members of a famous fencing school. Of course, I insisted that this be part of the trip. It might seem like we saw a lot, but in reality, we only sampled a small fraction of what Kyoto has to offer, and we didn't make any excursions to neighboring cities like Osaka, Himeji, or Nara, which also have many, many temples, shrines, castles, and historically significant parks. Maybe if you took a month, you could see it all at a reasonable pace.
The first hotel we stayed in was really cheap and ridiculously close to Kyoto train station, but not particularly nice other than being convenient. The second night we stayed at a ryokan, which as usual (this is my 3rd ryokan) was excellent: incredibly friendly and helpful staff, nice rooms, excellent food, and of course, top notch onsen.
It's been a long, eventful 3-day weekend, so that will have to be all for now.
Cheers,
