Kyoto Visit 京都市

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Our friend Kindra and I spent two nights in Kyoto, where we stayed at The New Miyako Hotel. Our first stop was at Toji Higashi Monmae, and what a way to start off our trip as it was beautiful. The pagoda is 57 m high, is the tallest wooden tower in Japan and is surrounded by gardens. We also enjoyed seeing the Buddhas of Toji which are located in Kondo-Hall, I don't have any pictures since they are prohibited. The very large statues are very intricately carved and just unbelievably beautiful.
Day two was a busy one we took the local JR line to Inari and visited Fushimi Inari Shrine, it was a 6 minute train ride. Fushimi is surrounded by thousands of torii all lined up making a beautiful path through the wooded area. For our next stop we took a city bus to Kiyomizu Temple, and after they dropped us off we had quite a hike up a steep hill. This required a little break about 1/2 way up for a few cold Kirins! It was worth it, there were many school age kids there and many of them wandered over to speak a bit of English and asked us to join them for pictures. Kiyomizu was also a very beautiful spot. Our last stop of the day was Heian Shrine, this again was a very nice place to visit. We didn't spend allot of time here since they were doing some restoration work.
In my opinion, you really need to have more than two days in Kyoto, we didnt have enough time to see it all. Enjoy the pics and of course there are more in the flickr folders.
http://flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157605478483529/