After 2 nights in  Nara, we moved on to Kyoto, Japan’s capital after Nara. Kyoto has an unbelievable amount of cultural treasures and would take years to see even a portion of them. We stayed in the Gion area which is famous for it’s Geisha culture.

Many women and men dress in traditional clothing to explore around the ancient temples and shrines

Here (above) I am in a carefully manicured garden in the Kenin-ji (founded in 1202 and the oldest Zen temple in Kyoto)

Here’s a mural on the temple’s ceiling

As the sun got lower, we went to Kiyomizu-dera (first built in 798 but re-constructed in 1633)

I made sure to do my cleansing ritual before entering the grounds

The next day, we started off at a market-fair at To-ji temple (The market is only held on the 21st of each month)

Shannon and Amy bought a kimono

We hopped on a train and headed off to Fushimi-inari (shrine) famous for it’s orange Tori (gates) throughout the sprawling complex. Inari is the god of rice and sake (rice wine) and the fox is the messenger of Inari (hence the fox statues everywhere).

Here’s a pic of Amy and I

Day 3 in Kyoto involved a zen garden, monkey park and a bamboo forest

This zen garden dates back to the 14th century

Arashiyama’s famous bamboo grove is located next to here

We trekked a little bit to find the Monkey Park. This is on top of a mountain and looks out on all of Kyoto. There are monkeys all around that you can feed from inside a small building.

After 10 days in Japan, it was time to head back to Busan, South Korea.