The Kyoto trip was done in a span of two days, and it felt like most of the sightseeing spots had to be crammed into a small frame of time. Since this was a trip with the institute, we had the luxury of a coach bus instead of taking and changing trains to get there.
It was mid-April now, and most of the flowers were in full bloom
Our first stop for the day was the famous Kinkakuji. I’ve only learned about its existence when a year ago, some Japanese high school student visited our university, and they did a presentation on the Golden and Silver Pavilion. Imagine all the gold leaves which goes into making this.
But my favourite part was the garden, made to symbolised island of mountains among swirling clouds.
We wrapped up our visit rather quickly. The place was filled with throngs and throngs of high and middle school students on their field trip, and I managed to sneak in a stick of dango or two as snack before we left.
Our next stop was the Ritsumeikan University. We were in for a session of discussion, and also working on our month-long project (this interview with the students were just part of it), but alas, it ended up in an arm wrestling battle.
We bade farewell to the students, and our bus dropped us off at our hotel which we were to stay for the night. Yet, in about 20 minutes or so after checking in, four of us were in front of the Kyoto JR station, waiting to catch a bus to the downtown geisha district for some adventure.
Made it down to Gion, skipped the main roads and wandered along the smaller walkways, but despite all the tell-tale signs of the geishas, we couldn’t manage to spot any. Tired, we snucked into a little eatery for oyako-don.
Over our meals, I sincerely forgot who came up with the brilliant suggestion, that we should visit the Fushimi-Inari shrine. We debated the sanity of it, and then decided that, blast the sanity of ours. We paid for our food and left to catch the train which would take us to the Fushimi-Inari shrine. At night.
この長い旅で 