my favorite day of the trip

Kyoto was definitely one of the places I wanted to visit while in Japan. And hopefully I can take another trip there, as I didn't get to see a fraction of what there is to see. The tour guide said that there are 1600 temples and shrines in the area! My first day there was a full tour day. We started out by going to the Nijo Castle. By the way, I am going to take it easy on the history and mainly tell my day with pictures - if that is okay with you. The castle is surrounded by a moat and several structures.


We toured the Ninomaru Palace with its nightingale floors - built that way to warn the shogun that lived there of intruders.
We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but there was beautiful gold leaf and paintings.












Next stop was the Kinkakuji Temple , or the Golden Pavilion Temple. Not only is the temple something to see (you can't go in), but the grounds were very picturesque as well due to the fall leaves.





There was a small rock garden (unfortunately the only one I was to see) that was being tended to while we were there.
Next on the morning agenda was the Kyoto Imperial Palace. Kyoto was the capital of Japan until 1869, when it was relocated to Tokyo. I was surprised by the bright orange color
of some of the trim on the buildings. But what really struck me were the roofs made of layers of cypress bark.
Once again, you do not tour the inside of any of the buildings but you could look into some of them.
I wonder if they would like another tiger painting......I happen to have one.

After a quick lunch, we boarded the bus for Nara, which is less than an hour away. The first stop was the Todaiji Temple. This is the largest wooden structure in the world and houses the Great Buddha of Nara, which is 49 feet tall.It really was a sight to see.Note the person in the lower left hand corner of the photo to get an idea about how large the doors are!
We then headed to the Nara Deer Park. Supposedly there are over 1000 deer roaming the park freely. It was fun to see. You could buy crackers that the deer eat to feed them. However, I saw that once you fed them, they wouldn't leave you alone for awhile. So I elected to just watch. This was a school picture that they were taking - I guess they gave up and just included the deer.

The last and (my favorite) spot of the day was the Kagusa Taisha Shrine, the largest Shinto shrine in the area. It is also home to 3000 lanterns made of stone, wood or bronze. In older days, all of the lanterns were lit daily. But that is now only done twice a year, on certain festival days. I would love to see that! I could have stayed there longer, taking photos. But I did take a fair amount - I will share some with you.




They are also known for wisteria. Since we were there during fall, we didn't see any blooming - but the young girls selling religious items had cute little wisteria hairpieces.

The area was thickly canopied with trees, which made for an air of reverence. But the cold air of late afternoon fall had us boarding the bus soon for our return to Kyoto.