Second week in Japan

We spent Friday travelling mostly, all the way from Lake Tazawa to Kanazawa (Google maps says in a car it would be a 625km journey, the train route is less direct so would cover even more distance). It took a long time so we didn't do any sightseeing.

Saturday we met up with a friend of Tom's, Simon (from Warrington). He is currently living in Kanazawa and teaching English. We went to a place commonly known as 'Ninja Temple ' because it has secret passages and possible traps. It's real name is something else because it was never actually anything to do with ninja. Unfortunately no photos were allowed of this place. Simon had to go to work after this but we'd meet him later.

Tom and I went to explore Kenrokuen next - one of Japan's best gardens (apparently the third best in the country) which was very pleasant, although it was a bit too early for most of the cherry trees to be in blossom. Then we looked around a samurai villa, Tom especially enjoyed this as he finds samurai very interesting! We explored the preserved teahouse district, higashi (where geishas once worked) and the preserved samurai district. We also passed through the castle grounds! After this busy day we met up with Simon for some sushi (Tom loves sushi but I don't really like fish so struggle with it, we found some non fish items on menu though!). After this we visited a shrine in the dark - the grounds don't close so it was possible to explore at night.

The next day we headed to Kyoto. The weather had finally got a little warmer which we were pleased about. We went to the fushimi inari shrine, which is famous for having many torii gates. It's quite a sight! It also is up a hill and offers a nice view over Kyoto. We finished off the day by heading to pontocho, an atmospheric Street (not big enough for cars) full of restaurants by the river and had a very enjoyable dinner.

We did so many things in Kyoto over the rest of the week just listing them all will probably take a while!
I'll do my best:
Monday we rode the sagano scenic railway to kameoka and had a boat ride down the hozu river back towards kyoto. We met up with Simon again to visit kinjakuji (golden pavilion - the building is covered with gold leaf) and ryoanji (has a famous rock garden).
Tuesday we spent our time in arashiyama (western kyoto). First we went to the monkey Park (full of Japanese macaques), then we went to tenruji temple, explored the bamboo groves, and visited daikakuji temple. We also visited the international manga museum and the kyoto pokemon centre.
Wednesday we spent our time in eastern kyoto. We went to ginkakuji (silver pavilion - not actually silver though unlike the golden one), walked along 'philosophers walk' (lots of cherry blossom trees! They were finally starting to bloom), visited nanzenji temple (we didn't explore much, by now our feet are hurting pretty much always with all this walking!), heian shrine, maruyama Park (we had a picnic and a rest! People sit in the park on tatami mats and relax and enjoy the cherry blossoms), yasaka shrine, gion area (traditional geisha teahouse area, some geishas apparently still work here! Also I found my first hello kitty shop), historical higashiyama district and kiyomizudera temple.
Thursday we went to nijo castle, sanjuusangendo temple, the nishiki market, and went to a tea ceremony experience where we were taught some of the customs of tea ceremony and how to whisk matcha.

After all this we are exhausted! But onward to Hiroshima and week 3....Read more