Wednesday, April 29
Today was our last day in Kyoto so we got an early start to see as much as possible of this amazing city. We headed straight to the Gion area as this is Kyoto's famous geisha district. It's also an old part of this city with lovely wooden merchant houses which are now tea houses or restaurants. In keeping with these traditions lots of the locals can be seen wearing kimonos and other traditional dress on the streets. There were lots of photo ops, with plenty of tourists around as well.
Hanamikoji Street in the Gion district 
A poodle with pink ears and tail - only in Japan?
A family portrait with the tourists!
Next on the agenda was the Nishiki Food Market, which is part of some pedestrian lanes behind the big department stores in the downtown area. Like most things we've observed in Japan, this market was orderly, spotless and full of all sorts of interesting offerings - the trouble was we didn't know what most of them were! We did identify some things, but it was more the presentation of the food that we were impressed with, especially the takeaway food.
We know this is fish, but not sure about the other goodies!
The bus system in Kyoto is fabulous, and we've been using it to get around. It was quite a ride to the Kinkaku-ji Temple, but we have seen a lot of Kyoto as a result. This temple is also called the Golden Pavillion and it is set in beautiful gardens like most of the temples here. It is a shariden, or Buddhist hall which contains relics of Buddha, and is a World Heritage site. There were bigger crowds here than anywhere else we've visited, and we could see why - even the tickets were impressive.
But it was the Golden Pavillion that blew us away, and it was just the right conditions to get some nice reflections on the lake once we had got a clear spot from which to take some photos!
The Golden Pavillion
We then headed off to the Ryoanji Temple which dates back nearly 600 years, and is also a World Heritage site. It is famous for the Rock Garden, which is a rectangular Zen garden that contains only 15 rocks and raked white gravel, and was created by a Zen monk around 500 years ago. We had to take our shoes off to walk on the floor of the building it was part of, and it was very peaceful just taking in the different perspectives of the garden as you walked from one end to the other.
The Rock Garden
Walking around the gardens in this temple complex was easy as you followed a path, and there were many great photo ops everywhere. It was hard to pick between this garden and the Golden Pavillion as the highlight of the day as they were both fantastic.
Views of the gardens at Ryoanji Temple
We then headed back to our hotel to change before heading out again to the Gion area for a cultural show of traditional Kyoto music, dance and other performances. The show started with a tea ceremony, then a lady demonstrated flower arranging to Japanese harp music. Next was a comic play and we could follow this because the script was printed in the program we received! Then came the dance performed by two geishas, and finally a Bunraku or puppet play - again we could follow it as the story line was in the program.
Although the show was very tourist orientated it still gave us a taste of Japanese culture, and it was a great way to complete our visit to Kyoto. We can thoroughly recommend this city as it is easy to get around and there are lots of interesting and different things to see and do here.
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