More in Kyoto
Oi, walking day. So, last night we just found some random restaurant on the main Karasuma Street that runs north-south through Kyoto. We're in some rather quiet part of town, a few blocks off Karasuma St., so it's kinda a change from the centrality we had in Osaka. We ate food, came back, and watched Sense & Sensibility on my laptop's DVD player.
Got up today for a late start. There's no free breakfast at this place, and they want to charge like $25 for a coffee, couple eggs, toast and ham set. Nu uh, not gonna happen. So we found some dinky coffee shop, got a drink and some cinnamon toast, then headed across Karasuma St to the Imperial Palace. It hasn't been lived in since 1868 when the capitol got moved to Edo (current day Tokyo). We walked around for a bit, then found out how to get tickets for inside. Turned out there were English tours twice a day, and we'd missed the 10 o'clock one, but got reservations for the 2PM one. Then, we started walking towards the Heian Shrine. And we walked. and walked. and oooh walked some more. No, Kyoto is not for walking. About an hour later we finally got to the shrine, which was pretty darn cool. Then, we just hopped in a taxi to get back for our tour of the palace. Our tour guide chick spoke English, but her accent was funky. We couldn't actually go into any of the buildings on the site, but we got to go around a lot of them, and peek inside the opened walls (lots of sliding doors rather than permament walls).
Hopped in a taxi to go back towards the Heian Shrine, for there was this Handicrafts Center that Lorraine wanted to go to, for gift shopping and other stuff. Whatev, I didn't get anything myself, for I did not want to overload my already stuffed suitcase. We're back here at the hotel, freshened up and are probably going to head out towards a shopping arcade for dinner and such. I don't want to stay out too late, I'm all sorts of pooped out from walking so much today.
Got up today for a late start. There's no free breakfast at this place, and they want to charge like $25 for a coffee, couple eggs, toast and ham set. Nu uh, not gonna happen. So we found some dinky coffee shop, got a drink and some cinnamon toast, then headed across Karasuma St to the Imperial Palace. It hasn't been lived in since 1868 when the capitol got moved to Edo (current day Tokyo). We walked around for a bit, then found out how to get tickets for inside. Turned out there were English tours twice a day, and we'd missed the 10 o'clock one, but got reservations for the 2PM one. Then, we started walking towards the Heian Shrine. And we walked. and walked. and oooh walked some more. No, Kyoto is not for walking. About an hour later we finally got to the shrine, which was pretty darn cool. Then, we just hopped in a taxi to get back for our tour of the palace. Our tour guide chick spoke English, but her accent was funky. We couldn't actually go into any of the buildings on the site, but we got to go around a lot of them, and peek inside the opened walls (lots of sliding doors rather than permament walls).
Hopped in a taxi to go back towards the Heian Shrine, for there was this Handicrafts Center that Lorraine wanted to go to, for gift shopping and other stuff. Whatev, I didn't get anything myself, for I did not want to overload my already stuffed suitcase. We're back here at the hotel, freshened up and are probably going to head out towards a shopping arcade for dinner and such. I don't want to stay out too late, I'm all sorts of pooped out from walking so much today.