Yesterday was our first real day of sightseeing. We got a bit of a late start after a leisurely breakfast in the apartment and headed out around 10:30.
Luckily our apartmen has a closet full of umbrellas because it rained nearly all day. No problem though. All the Kyoto establishments seem prepared for wet weather – they have these umbrella stands where you can lock up your umbrella. This is important as we found if you leave your umbrella unlocked, an old Japanese woman is likely to replace her broken one with your not broken one. We stared at her menacingly until she brought it back. Weird.
We’re about to leave for Koyasan, where we will spend the night at a Buddhist monastary. This will be our “busiest” day – we’ll take the bullet train to Osaka, then the Osaka subway to a different train station, then another train, a cable car, and a bus. All before noon, so we have enough time to see the main temple in Koyasan before dinner/prayers/communal baths (!) at the monastery.
Here’s a picture of a pictur of something we saw yesterday. They didn’t allow photos so this is a picture of the souvenier book we bought there.
Hey there, you know if I was there, I would have taken a photo anyway!