We made it!
The trip was long and of necessity tiring, but otherwise it went well. We flew to San Francisco and then an 11-hour flight to Osaka's Kansai airport. From there we took the Haruka train to Kyoto, caught a subway, and then walked the last few blocks to the Hotel Fujita. Our room has a lovely view of the Kamo river, as you can see. (The downside of this hotel is the internet connection is not in-room as we had hoped, so our posts will be less frequent.) We did go to the nearby tourist district and had soba in a restaurant we discovered on our last visit.
The next morning we awoke early, and took a walk along the Kamo to the train station, where we fortified ourselves with yen (ATMs that work with US cards can be surprisingly hard to find), had breakfast of pastries, and then bought train/bus passes.
From the station we caught a crowded bus and went to Sanjusangendo Temple, home of the thousand kannon, or statues of the Buddha of Mercy. It is one of our favorite temples in Kyoto, but you cannot take a picture inside, so I only give you the picture of the outside. In the middle of the thousand kannon is one enormous gold-plated Buddha.
After Sanjusangendo we went to Maruyama Park, just outside the famed Gion district. We are in Japan just after cherry blossom season, but there are still some beautiful blossoms to see. This also means lots of tourists, especially Japanese tourists on a Sunday like this, so we hit Maruyama in late morning before it became too crowded. Afterwards we went to a restaurant just off the Kamo river--negotiating meals in Japan is sometimes interesting, as we aren't always sure how (and when) to consume a particular item. Do we pour this sauce over the soba noodles or dip it in it?
We took the rest of Sunday easy, assuming that everything will be more crowded on a weekend, and will return to our adventures Monday morning.
