Kyoto!

Maria-san has left for Sweden... And after a few weeks of mourning it's time for an update.

Kyoto. What an amazing place! Far from Tokyo's neonlights and noisy street... A peaceful city with smalltown feeling. We stayed very cheap at "The Cheapest Inn", very nice hostel, where we met Adam from Hawaii, a movie director, who became our travel buddy for the next two days.

Day 1. On a very cheap trainticket we (Hanna, Patrik, Maria and Camilla) arrived Kyoto after 8 hours on seven trains!! But it was really cheap. We checked in, had dinner and bought some clothes, because Kyoto was very cold last week.

Day 2. Started at Nijo Castle, in central Kyoto, walked on the "Nightingale Floor" that squeeked when you walked on it, almost sang like a bird, to warn the Shogun if enemies appeared. Continued to Toji Temple, to see a huge pagod of five floors and also a very interesting market with genuin Japanese handicrafts. This is also where Hanna (me) got hit by a five-year old kid on a bike, and had an awful pain in the hand for the following days ;) With a big wish to see a geisha, we entered the mystical Gion city, where the last day of the illuminated street was celebrated. Lights in all colours along the streets and statues, temples and shrines lit up, made our second night in Kyoto magical. Oh, I also have to tell you that we had dinner at a restaurant... Nice dinner, actually very good; seven course meal, including a WHOLE fish to eat. I'm not joking, every little piece from eyes to tail to skin... He was lying with open mouth and teeth exposed,and we ALL did it! We all ate the fishes. They were blue. Check the picture Camilla took.















Day 3. The little green local train took us to Funashi Inari. The pictures of the red tunnels show everything I think. They stretched all the way up to the mountain and it was absolutely magical. Along the way was some tehouses and some graveyards.





Moving on to the temple where Scarlet Johanson witness the wedding in "Lost in Translation". Loads of tourists of course, but luckily for us, Adam had heard about a hidden temple in the woods. We HAD to find it! High up above a ravin and a creek, was a waterfall and a small temple altar hidden in the mountain. In a cave! Amazing! It felt as an Indiana Jones movie. We were alone in the jungle...

When looking for the "Philosophers walk" it started to rain. We took refugee in a smal teahouse, serving specially made appeltea. Absolutely delicious! The smell after the rain, as we left the teahouse was fantastisc. I fell in love with Kyoto at that point. I think we all did. The air was filled with jasmin, the sun turned red in the white, still cloudy sky, and the japanese flag appeared. At the end of the walk, we were suppose to find "Ginkakuji Temple", but the place seemed to be closed. We had to to be content with another mystical temple in the woods. The light was amazing and our photographers (actually all of us ;) were trying every light option we had in our cameras. Adam had a cool gadget that "recorded" the light so that he could recreate it later. We ended a wonderful day with tapanyaki, food that we fried on the table, and a lot of beers. The day after, Patrik and Camilla enjoyed the nice 9 hour train back, when Maria, me and Adam took the luxurious Shinkansen back to Tokyo. We were back in two and a half hours.