Goodale Family Musings: Kyoto

I spent the day touring Kyoto, Japan today with three work associates (our group pictured at right, at "Kinkakuji," or the Golden Pavilion"). I absolutely LOVE Kyoto; it's my favorite city in Japan. Kyoto is much more laid back than Tokyo, and it has one of the most awesome train stations in the world. There is SO much of historical significance here, too - it's just way fun. One gets a much better understanding of historical Japan by touring Kyoto.

We first started at Nijo Castle, a shogun castle originally built in the 1600s. It's the "miracle of Japanese joinery" - you can ask me about that later if you want. :-) I like Nijo-jo because it really gives you a sense of what life was like in that era.

Then we went to Kinkakuji - it was probably close to my 20th trip there, but it's still cool every time! Nearby is Ryoanji where the famous rock gardens pictured in many Japan books, plus a gorgeous zen garden. However, it was undergoing renovation and though still open, we didn't feel we'd get the true sense of the place. So we skipped it and then...

...we went on to Kiyomizu-dera, or the purified water temple. Not only is this cool for all of the temple buildings, but it also sits up on a hill overlooking Kyoto, which is really kind of cool.

One of our taxi drivers today was SUPER talkative!!! He even had pictures of lots of things here in Kyoto, and he was flipping through these picture books while he was driving us, showing all of these places. That was kind of scary!!! He said there are over 1,600 (was that the number? anyway it's a lot!!!) temples/shrines/sites in the Kyoto area, but we saw what I think are the three coolest.

Posted herein and below are some of the pictures from the day. To see all 35 pics that I've posted on Flickr, please click here.