The previous post in this series is here..
After leaving Nara, we came back to Kyoto and I had three places to see in Kyoto mainly from a photographic interest. One was an ancient street which was supposed to be captured at golden hour, the other was the Golden pavilion and the third was downtown Kyotos main shopping street.
The cloud were everywhere and it was drizzling and there was going to be no golden hour. So historic preserved street wasn’t going to happen. We had to go back to the shopping area in the evening anyways.
so that left the Golden Pavilion or Kinkaku-ji temple. It is a gold covered Buddha temple in the middle of a lake on a hill.
We took two cabs and went straight from the station to the temple, stood in line and got tickets. Then it started pouring. There was a large crowd there to see the temple and every umbrella was dripping on to other peoples feet. There should be a minimum umbrella distance maintained and it was not to be. With wet shoes we were walking around the lake still trying to take pictures and joking around. It was a memorable experience although not a great one. As a group we generated fun. That is the best way to put it. Then again we could be in a gulag and still generate fun. We were just happy traveling together.
This temple is absolutely breathtaking. Even in that rain. Here are the photos.. from all sides of the lake that we were allowed to see!
We walked around the lake, took pictures and walked down the hill to a restaurant scouted by Jr. It was supposed to be a popular vegan place. Yet again, as her luck would have it, it was closed! So we found another place a block away which had vegetarian options in the menu. I ate a plain brown rice noodle (it was just unflavored sevai) while the rest of the group had soup, salad and noodles. We got an Uber XL and stopped at the shopping district. It was early evening already, but the group had at least had something to eat and we were done with sight seeing on a schedule.
A short video highlight of our Kinkaku-ji temple visit.
The next post is definitely a social study..