Today was the big “lets see Kyoto!” Day! The day started early around 730 for breakfast and our tour guide showed up around 8:30 to give us a precursor of Japan.

After our little lecture we drove to Kinkaku-Ji temple! You’ve probably seen photos of this temple from the Internet but it is a gold temple in the middle of a water garden. It was beautiful. We took many photos.

After Kinkaku-Ji we headed to Tenryu-Ji. It was this pretty palace that had zen and regular gardens. It was very photogenic.

After that we went to the Arashiyama Bamboo forest!!! This is a very popular spot on social media and it was so pretty. We walked around the forest and down to the main drag for lunch. We were able to walk down this really pretty river with boats and a lot of people in kimonos. For lunch, I got karaage ( fried chicken), fired masked potatoes, and some soft serve ice cream for dessert. It was getting pretty warm and sunny out so I felt my face starting to go a bit red.

After lunch we boarded back on our tour bus and headed out to Kiyomizu-dera. This was a beautiful temple that presided in the older part of Kyoto. Before the temple were a lot of stairs up through the town and all the small local shops. There were so many people. I’m planning on going back there for my free day on Friday!

When we got to the temple we all took a deep breath and walked some more. From the angle of view we were able to see all of Kyoto and the mountains in the area. The temple itself was beautiful as well. The temple had a lot of fountains with purified water for people to wish upon. I was taking some photos for Fabian when an older Japanese gentleman offered to take photos of us. He was really nice and complimented our Japanese :D! On our way back down the stairs I ended up buying a kitsune mask, some more star candy, and a cute Kirby token that said Kyoto! Here’s the photos:

Our last stop of the day was at Fushimi Inari Shrine. This shrine is well known for its many many Torii gates. Torii gates are typically red gates symbolizing our connections to the deities according to Shintoism. This particular shrine had foxes as the messenger to the spirits so there were different types of fox statues everywhere. Depending on what the fox was holding depended on the blessing. We ended up only walking about 1000 Torii gates but there are so so so many more the higher you go up the trail. We turned at the first point we could since everyone was getting tired and the day was close to over. Not only was this really cool to see but also very aesthetic and crowded. We were lucky enough to get some good photos while we walked.

We then piled into the bus one more time to go to KCG for the first time. We had an anime screening and met with some more professors at the school. We watched Mugen Train from Demon Slayer. I love that movie and I’m glad a lot of the class seemed to enjoy it. We also go to see the old computers KCG had. I’ll definitely take a closer look at that at some point.

After the movie we all got together and went to dinner at Aeon mall. We all had some food, talked about our day, and walked back to the hotel exhausted. I took a quick shower. Fun fact the showers in our hotel at traditional. This means that there’s a floor that drains and a bathtub. You use the faucet and out water in a bowl to wash your body outside the tube. Once you’re clean you can use the tub to bathe. Ok that’s all for today! See you tomorrow!