The first stop I made was Kinkaku-ji Temple. The temple is a world heritage site, and overall, very scenic. I also picked up a souvenir that I’m gonna give to mom and dad.

  
  
After, I headed to Ninjo-jo Castle. It is huge! Both the inside and outside take a bit of time to walk through to fully appreciate.

   
   
  
After, I headed to Kyoto station where I was going to meet up with my tour group. The station is huge (I’ll post about it separately).  

Before meeting with my group, I wanted to try a restaurant called Kyotofu (since Kyoto is known for their Tofu). However, because it was a holiday (its Hatvest day), all the restaurant’s had a line. So I ended up eating something at 7 eleven :/.

In my tour group, I met 3 other people from SF. So basically 25% of the tour was from SF lol.

The first stop my tour group went to was a small Temple called Taikoan.

  
Apparently there is a difference between temple and shrine. One difference is that the temple deals with the here and living, while a shrine deals with the afterlife. Also, the way you pray in a temple is one bow after you ding a bell. In a shrine, before ringing the bell it’s 2 claps, then ring, then 3 bows (and I think a couple more claps?).

After, we went to a really popular temple called Tofukoan. 

    

The following pic is suppose to represent the Big Dipper. Also, a little odd fact… dragons are considered water animals in Japan.

   
The following pic is a picture of a zen garden. Didn’t really find my Zen though.   
  
  
The next pic is a pic of me standing in front of a San-mon. It means three (something). You’re supposed to enter it before praying at the temple (the picture before this one).

Before heading to the next stop, we tried some local Kyoto Pasteries. It was basically rice paste and redbean.

After this temple, we went to Fushimi-Inari-Takisha shrine.

  
   
 
   
   
To climb and walk around the whole shrine takes approximately 3 hours. Also, the writing on the back of the gates are basically a business card (people pay several thousand yearly to have their names on gates).

The last stop we went to was Gion. Unfortunately, there was no Geiko’s or Meiko’s (Meiji is a Geiko intraining, and Geiko is a Kyoto Gaisha, as Gaisha is the word for ones in Tokyo).

   

After Gion, I checked out Pontocho with two of the people in my tour group that were from SF (Kenny and Amanda). 

  
 The following ally pic is a place where several bars are located that my tour guide recommended (and the pic after that is the bar he said to go to. Unfortunately none of the bars were open at 6pm. They open at 7pm, so I didn’t stay to have a drink).

  
  
After Pontocho, I was super hungry (and cold) so I ended up checking out a Ramen place on the way to the bus stop, which would take me to Kyoto Station).