Day 4: KYOTO

Hello family! This is Toyomi Takahashi blogging today. So far I've been having so much fun in this trip. This is my 7th time coming to japan and the 2nd time traveling with morikawa sensei.
Today we woke up at 7 and had a buffet style breakfast at our hotel at 8. The food was yummy! We had to wait a bit for Andy because he woke up late. Haha. We left our hotel at 9 and went to the osaka station and sensei gave us a brief tour of the area. It was a beautiful station. THere was a lot of poeple tere, as it should be, it is a weekend.

After the tour of Osaka Station, we took the train to Kyoto. We arrived at the kyoto station and bought some food for lunch. From the station, we took the bus and headed to the kinkakuji temple (the golden temple) with a beautiful garden surrounding the golden pavilion. The bus system in Japan is very different compared to SFMUNI. The Japanese bus is on time and people get on from the back of the bus and pay at the front when you leave. We also need to line up at the station before we get on so people can not cut each other.

There was a lot of vendors selling beautiful charms. Toward the end of the walk, and the beautiful scenery, there were vendors selling ice cream, and shaved ice. Everyone at least got one except Sensei. We bought Vanilla, Macha/Vanilla ice cream. Some other people bought shaved ice. It was all very delicious. From kinkakuji, we took another bus to see the heian jingu shrine. We first went through the red gates. We went to the front of the shrine where everyone clapped and bowed to. Some of our group mates bought good luck charms and fortunes from the stands.

From the heian jingu, we went straight to another temple called the Kiyomizu Temple. This temple is located on top of the mountain so we were able to see the great view of the Kyoto city and lots of nature surrounding the temple. There were lots of souvineer shops and food stands on the street connecting the temple and the station. This street was very crowded with many students and tourists. We had an hour of free time so Jennifer and I were able to buy some traditional kyoto snack called yatsuhashi. This is a triangular shaped mochi with red bean paste inside. I also bought some green tea flavored dango which were super delicious.

After the free time, we met up at the bus station and headed back to the kyoto station to ride the train back to osaka. We all had free time after and had dinner in Osaka. Jennifer, Alaina, Marisa, and I went back to the hotel to do the laundry while the rest of the group went to eat sushi with sensei. We also decided to go eat sushi at a later time, which was an interesting experience. Overall today was a learning experience. We learned about the temples and the bus system which is very different from America.

Toyomi