i’m currently writing this at 9:17 pm, and i swear to god i could pass out at any given second. this long and eventful day started bright and early, meaning i had to wake up at 6 am, which is extremely early for me. i somehow managed to stay conscious long enough to get ready, eat breakfast, sit through a brief introduction with our guide, and then we were promptly on our way.

after a quick bus ride we were already at the kinkakuji temple. it was absolutely breathtaking. just walking into the entrance and seeing the main building was so beautiful. as much as i could have spent an entire day in the courtyard alone, yuko had a strict schedule to keep us on. we were quickly swept away to the main attraction: the golden pavilion. it was constructed in the 13th century and made from solid gold. the gardens and pond that surrounded it were gorgeous, and it was so cute to see the wildlife that lived peacefully there. walking around the entire stone path, at one point managing to lose a couple hundred yen trying to land a coin in a bowl, yuko lead us through the rest of the temple.

next up was the bamboo forest, and i was particularly excited for this one. not only was it going to be awesome as hell, it was also going to be shady and keep us cool from the suffocating heat and humidity. as we were driving there that’s when we all noticed just how many vending machine’s were posted up on almost every street corner. seriously. i didn’t realize japan happened to be the vending machine capital of the world or something, jeez. anyway once we got to the bamboo forest i was actually just floored. it was gorgeous. i could’ve gotten lost wandering around forever. however that was quickly dashed when yuko began dragging us along to the next stop.

following the forest was kiyomizu dera temple which was probably my favorite that we visited. between the traditional styled architecture, the bustling shops and stalls, and the gorgeous view of kyoto once you climbed to the top of the temple, it was just wonderful. as we were ascending the steps, and the hill (??? idk it was an upwards slope of stores) i saw so many things i wanted to buy, but again yuko had other plans. we quickly took a group photo, and headed up the rest of the way to the top of the temple. there was a lookout point that we could see all of kyoto from. the photos really don’t do it justice. once we were done we were allowed 30 minutes to shop around before meeting up for the next shrine. i stuck with belle, megan, and jess for this time and made notes for what i would come back for on our free day.

the final stop with yuko was the fushimi inari shrine. there are over 10,000 tori gates to go through, and that would take over two and a half hours which was time we didn’t have to spare. so instead we took the extremely abridged route, and only went through about two hundred. i liked the omokara ishi part a lot, it was a wishing stone and depending on how heavy the stone felt when you picked it up was an indicator of how likely it was to come true!

to round out the day we watched the demon slayer: mugen train movie, which was pretty interesting since i haven’t seen season one. i sat next to jasmine and kept asking her questions about what was happening and going on. it was very entertaining. then the class made the collective decision to get food at a malls foodcourt where we got to spend our first little bit of isolated time with toshi (my beloved). i got indian and received the largest piece of naan i’d ever seen in my LIFE. belle took a photo of me, skyler, and jess with each of our naan’s, which will stick with me forever.