Breakfast at a great onigiri place!  Ben almost broke the record (he had 4) the record was 5!

Drove to Nijo Jo castle!  Recognized it from the AC Shadows game.  They had Nightingale floors, ancient murals, and more. 

Then, sanjusangendo temple saw 1000 bhudah statues!  And one large one in the center!  We couldn’t take pictures, but we had a brochure.

The hall was the longest in Kyoto! And the building itself was from 1266 or so! Amazing it’s still standing. Some of the statues were older than that and predated samurai culture itself!

Many were made from India or china and brought in.  

Lunch was at Jugo and had soba noodles featured o. Somebody feed Phil!  (Season 7 Kyoto episode) 

Amazing. Simple and delicious!  Went to philosophers path after for a block along the steam.  

Went to the Heian-jingu temple! White sand made it very bright.  It was a replica of an imperial palace.  We walked along the lovely garden path.  

Ben took the “dragon path” and Jake just watched and said “fall in” under his breath.  lol. 

We walked over a covered bridge with chimes on it. The boys fed the fish (and turtles) 

The bass were huge!

We stopped at a golden pagoda!  Such a beautiful building sitting among the trees and hills.  Was a shogun’s house, but he donated it to the Buddhists. 1400’s or so?  It did burn down, but was rebuilt. 

Walked along a path to see the views all around.  

Then we went to a shrine dedicated to health.  And there was a string of very old shops along the way.  We stopped at one to have a grilled mochi type treat and tea. 

We kept hitting our heads on the door frame like Gandalf in a hobbit hole.  We took off our shoes and sat on pillows 

Then it started to rain and with the windows open it was wonderful to feel the cool breeze and hear the rain. 

This was also on that somebody feed Phil episode. 

https://www.netflix.com/us/title/80146601?s=i&trkid=258593161&vlang=en

We paid for our snack and ran to the car in the rain. It felt good honestly, after all the heat.  

Went to a Japanese rock garden visited by the queen.  The rocks have been in this formation for over 400 years.  The housing around them burned down, but was rebuilt and the rocks were untouched. 

We went back to the happy pancake for dinner. Very light and fluffy pancakes!  They were more like flan than a pancake.  Delicious.  

Went to a geisha tour with a funny Australians tour guide. Got to see three Geisha!  And we leaned about kabookie theater and geisha culture and history. It was funny watching the tour guide dance around adult topics as there were 13 year olds in the group with us.  There are exclusive tea houses that are so hard to get into that the touring company can’t even get access.