My First Foreign Country Part Deux

My second full day in Japan was spent in Kyoto. Kyoto is north of Osaka and is said to be the most beautiful city in Japan. Again please excuse any spelling or grammar mistakes.
-
Now this wasn't the first thing we did, but I forgot when I ate this so I'm just posting it now.

Those are called Takoyaki. It's a japanese dumpling with gooey stuff and octopus inside topped with a mayonnaise and a special sauce.

Kyoto

Kyoto is a pretty big city with 5 main parts; Northern, Central, Eastern, Western, and Southern. The first place we went to in Kyoto was the Gion District in Eastern Kyoto. This particular district because Lawrence wanted to see a real life Geisha.

As you can see this day started off with beautiful clear blue skys! =D

A nice looking street on our way to our destination.

First stop of the day, Yasaka Shrine.

Next: Kiyomizu Temple.

For lunch we had EEL!!!

I didn't know what to get so I got what he got.

Eel over rice!

It was good but the eel I had in Gochang was way better. Waaay better. haha

After lunch we took the bus and headed over to Central Kyoto.

This is Nijo Castle.

The castle was nice. It had a great garden (which would probably be better in the spring time with all the flowers and whatnot.

Afterwards we went to Northern Kyoto to see Kinkaku-ji Temple.

Golden Pavilion at Kinkaku-ji Temple.

After Kinkaku-ji Temple, we went back to the Gion District to explore more of the Yasaka Shrine.

I don't know what that was called. It looked like Ohdeng on a stick but it wasn't. The outside was like harden rice and inside was like rice porridge. And a piece of dried seaweed on the outside. Wasn't too good.

We thought they were Japanese girls in Komonos. Lawrence TRIED asking them if we could take pictures with them in Japanese and they were like "you can speak to us in English." Turns out they were not Japanese and a lot of non-Japanese people like to wear Komonos and take pictures in parks and gardens. haha

Appartently this was suppose to be the most beautiful street in Asia.

It was nice I guess.

The way back we took the subway and it was packed so we had to stand by the train doors. Like 30 minutes into the ride, one of the passengers pulls out seats from nowhere. You can't really tell from the pictures but it was really cool and clever!

The hostel we stayed at. We stopped by to drop off our bags. Then we went out for dinner.

We had Okonomiyaki! It's a cabbage batter based Japanese pancake with a choice of meat/seafood of your choice topped with mayo and special sauce.

First the cabbage with shrimp was mixed in a bowl with an egg.

Then they added flakes of octopus.

Then they flipped it over and added the sauces.

That was our second day. Another packed day. The next post of the next day will be of Osaka and Kobe.