Kyoto

Famous for its numerous shrines and temples.

Perhaps this Golden Temple (金閣寺） is by far the most famous one around. I'm not sure if the whole thing is made up of real gold? Or is it just gold-plated? The building was out-of-bounds.. haha. Perhaps they are scared that the visitors will go in, scrape some gold out and take it home as souvenir.

Next on the itinerary was Ten-Ryu Temple (天龍寺） (in chinese: 天龙寺 tian1 long2 si4)

Its a Zen temple. There are no specific buddah statues to pray to, just a big open shelter for pple to sit down and meditate. There a nice garden and lots of bamboo trees behind the building.

Pond/lake in between the budiling and the forest.. quite scenic
Bamboo trees in the back.


The last temple i visited was Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺）　(In chinese: 清水寺)
This temple is built on the top of a small hill. Quite a number of temples here are listed under their "national heritage list" due to their history or architecture. This one is definitely no exception.


It has spring water from the mountain top for pple to wash their hands before entering the temple

Many pple come here to pray for marriage (縁結び). I found this cute game at one corner of the temple.

The 2 stones are abt 20 metres apart and there were some girls queueing to try it out. sad to say, most of the pple who tried it did not manage to reach the other stone. :(

That nite, we visited the city area.

Busy traffic junction in the middle of the city:A famous shopping street there:

GION:
Yet another must-go place on the tourists' itinerary. It is a street lined with traditional shophouses (now converted to upmarket restaurants). Along the way, you may spot Geishas!!!


And yup, we did see 2 that night. :)

FOOD:

Kansai (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe) area's famous dish: Okono Miyaki
There were many so variations there, each with different ingredients...
I forgot which was which.. but it all tasted great.
The one in the middle, with yaki-soba as the base is the Hiroshima version of Okono Miyaki