Edit: Added some YY temple pics to folder.

Expect a massive photo dump somewhere at the end of trip with hundreds of photos. It’s just to much trouble to sort out details and upload them atm.

Anyway, day 4. Kyoto. Wake up, still tired. We all head out and take a minute walk to the Freshco to buy breakfast. For the 3rd time the trip so far I drop a fuckload of my money. Some Japanese woman spots it and gives it back, thankfully. We all head down to the river outside the hostel and eat our food. Is quite a few large fish swimming around in the river, and several wild goldfish! Japanese woman keep biking past with these massive visors on their heads and crazy sleeves on their arms, it’s hot as hell but apparently they don’t care.

Confirm our plans for the day. Visit Golden Pavilion and then go up a fake mountain and pet some monkeys, cool.

So we catch a few trains, get on a bus and get dropped off at the GP. It should be mentioned that Japanese buses are run quite differently that from in the UK. Apparently here you get on in the middle of the bus or the back and then at your stop you go to the front to get off, and pay while doing so. So we get to the GP and take the walk up to the paying gate. Some of the group get dragged to one side and are not allowed in since they are still eating stuff. Myself, stelf and teg go on in and we are directed to a small viewing area. It’s a green lake with the GP in the background, so we take a load of photos. Part way through I’m wondering what the loud noise next to me is, I look at the tree and there’s a freaking huge cicida sat there. The three of us take a load of photos of it and I attempt to pick it up. It makes a pissed off clicking noise and flies away. Rest of group arrives finally, get some photos of GP with us in front, spot a turtle and some dragonflies and we move on.

Not much else to see really, some wishes on paper tied to things, some incense burning, a kid throwing rocks at people and then slapping his mum in the face, pots that we stop to throw coins in, takes a me a few attempts but I get one in. You can see holo’s hand and a coin in midair in one of the photos in day 2 link 😀

Get to the exit area, grab some gifts for family, buy a melon soda from a machine, it comes with fucking ice in the cup, awesome, right? lol at the terrible English on some of the fortune machines “hard money, pay down”, and then leave.

Nip to a raman cafe nearby for dinner, it’s okay, nothing amazing though. I have shrimp tempura and udon. Kind of mortified when it turns up with the ebi floating in the soup, I’d expected it to be nice and crispy. Instead it was soaked and was only one tiny shrimp in a load of batter. We eat up and TT decides to throw the contents of his bowl down himself and on the floor. After apologising to the lady we leave and TT goes to buy a new T-shirt.

Spend far to long buying crap from a near by shop, myself, teg, sara and lucy get bored and start walking towards a rock garden… It’s 15mins away but takes a bit longer since the group catches up finally and we keep stopping.

Get in rock garden, it’s a world heritage site, we have to take our shoes off as we go in, it’s a lot smaller than I’d imagined it to be. There’s only like 15 stones in the garden, and then a really humid grove off to the side, and a water shrine thing around the back for washing hands and praying. We don’t stay for long since people want to go see the monkey’s. We leave, grab a couple of buses and get to train station. Odin rings me and says the monkey place shuts in 30mins. So we tell him to come back to hostel. We then decide to go visit the international manga museum. Get there and it’s at last admissions so only a few of us go in cos not worth it. Seriously, the fuck Kyoto? Everything closes so early. Wait outside, lol at the “beware angry caterpillar they bite” or something sign. Then go for dinner at nearby cafe. It’s a curry house, and food is quite good.

Some of the group leave while the rest finish up. After we finish we go out and are told that TT and the others are up in some chapel for a wedding. The fuck? This woman comes down and tells us all to go up, we go up, we come right back down, NFI what just happened. Outside now and there’s some drama over a door been broke, still no idea what it was about, but the woman that worked there spoke really good English apparently. Anyway, we leave and head back into Kyoto. End up walking back for some reason, spot an anime shop on other side of road so we nip over. I say nip over but the road is massive with shops all over the place and lined with lantern-ish lights. Anyway the others heading back to hostel. Sakura buys half the shop and we leave. Head back to hostel, get back before holo’s group somehow and I go to bed cos I’m tired as fuck. Day 5 when we get up, with Osaka on the cards, main aim to visit the Kanon bench and visit a castle. Before that teg and myself decide to wake up at 5am to go visit the shrine from Yuru Yuri, so set alarm for that and go sleep.