Day 3 - Kyoto

The bus arrived earlier than scheduled, we were supposed to arrive at 6:00am, instead we arrived at Kyoto by 5:00 am. It was so cold that morning, I was shivering all over. We decided to take shelter inside the Kyoto Sta. and use their facilities to wash and freshen up. The iPhone said it was 9degreesC outside! Bbbrrrrrr!

Good thing (or bad) Ivy and I had to walk a good 3 blocks to get to the Nagomi Yuu Ryokan to keep our blood circulated. We took our time with the walk as I advised them earlier that we will probably arrive after 6:00am and get to the hotel by 7:00am. But it was still 5:45am! How to kill time? Eat! We went inside Lawson and perused the shelves for something to warm the tummy. Aaaah! Found some onigiris and hot coffee in can. Perfect for the chilly weather while we try to find our way to the Ryokan.

Caught at the end of a bite outside Lawson! It's sooo yummy, the filling was shrimp :)

Walking the narrow streets to our inn, we were careful not to make a ruckus with our trolley bags as the neighborhood was eerily quiet, we could even hear ourselves pant! After getting a little lost and disoriented, we finally arrived at the Ryokan around 6:30am. Good thing they have seats outside the reception where we could rest.

We were checked in by 7:00am but since we arrived early, the current guests still had not checked out so we decided to visit the temple nearest our ryokan, the Higashi-Honganji Temple.

Then we visited a beautiful garden Kikokutei, which was once part of the Honganji Temple. By now it was already 11am, time to head back and freshen up!!!

The ryokan was very cozy and clean...tiny but charming at the same time. The futons were very very comfortable, amazingly enough. After freshening up and unpacking a bit, we realized it was already close to 3:00 pm and we still haven't had lunch! We headed straight to Sukiya for the first time to try if they were truly better than Yoshinoya. They were!

After that filling meal, we headed to the second temple (5 pounds heavier), the Nishi-Honganji just a few minutes walk from Higashi-Honganji. This was once the main temple of the Shin Buddhism sect until it garnered a lot of power in the 1600's that a "rebel" group had broken away to build the Higashi-Honganji Temple.

We only had a few moments inside the temple as they close at 4:00pm. Such a cloudy afternoon and the breeze was really chilly. We were so hard-pressed to find some contrast in the landscape as well as some cloud details. But in any case, go pa rin!

Dinner was at the ryokan since we had a late lunch at Sukiya. My, my, the choices you have in Japan's convenience stores will blow you away! Thanks for dinner, Lawson Plus.

[Posted with iBlogger from iPhone]