Kyoto, Japan
Our arrival in Japan was dominated by anxiety. Going to a land where the written language does not even use western symbols and unsure whether English is spoken to any great degree, we were convinced finding our hotel would be troublesome! However we were thankfully wrong and found the hotel very easily. We also found that almost all the signs had English translations!
Kyoto was our first destination – an easy train ride from Kansai Osaka airport. It is a beautiful city with temples and shrines almost around every corner. This is understandable as it was the Imperial capital between 794 and 1868 (after which has been Tokyo). It is considered to be the cultural heart of Japan with 17 world heritage sites, more than 1600 Buddhist temples and over 400 Shinto shrines.
We only managed to see two temples and an Imperial Palace in the one day we were there and we felt like we had missed out on almost everything! However we did see a Buddhist service which was quite intense with much monotone orating and two beautiful temples which had regular visitors and very ornate rooms:
The Imperial Palace is quite stunning and large with its own grounds which are well worth a visit on their own! A tour has to be booked to see the palace itself. One can imagine it was very grand in its day however it has burned down many times due to its unique thatched roofs (made out of bark). Many of the buildings we looked at were post imperial status but it was an interesting tour nonetheless especially the ornate slides:
One thing that was striking was how symmetrical the architecture was and how everything seemed to fit:
We also stayed in a fantastic hotel which had great Japanese styled rooms. Ours had three mattresses and straw mats and the bathroom I could not stand tall in – it was great fun!! A fleeting visit was not enough at all and even with a fantastic meal in the evening I felt hungry for more Kyoto!