Kyoto Day 1

Up bright and early for exploring Kyoto in the pouring rain - so we opted for a nice cosy hop on hop off sightseeing bus... Unfortunately none of the busses have any indoor seating. haha! They kindly provided us with semi-waterproof ponchos though.

Nijo castle was amazing, even in the rain. Unfortunately you're not allowed to take pictures of the inside, but we were allowed to photograph our shoes. ;-) There are a lot of places where you have to take your shoes off, which is charming but also makes you hope you don’t have a hole in your socks.

The Golden temple was also very pretty but very crowded. The real highlight was wandering through the Higashiyama district and up to the Kiyomizu-dera temple at night. It was beautifully illuminated and you really could get lost in a maze of beautiful shrines.

We then hiked down the hill and back to hunt down some Okonomiyaki but first we stumbled across some actual geishas which is apparently quite rare. They were very striking and really did exude elegance just by the way they walked which was really cool and quite intimidating. Laura also found a new favourite sweet: fried rice balls in sweet soy sauce (Mitarashi Dango).Read more