Kyoto Day 4 - Last day

On my last day in Kyoto, I had until 6 before I had to catch my train, so there was still enough time to check out a few more things. First, I finally got to check out Nijo-jo, an old (1600) shogun's castle right across the street from my hotel. I would have gone sooner, but they were closed for new years. Still, it was nice passing by this everyday on the way to the subway.

This is just the guardhouse on the corner, but it's the part you can see best from outside. I went in, plunked down 500 yen for the self-guiding audio tour, and I was off. Inside, there was another "World Heritage Site", a palace that was the official Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns. I walked through the palace, and it was of course full of beautiful paintings, which I didn't realize until later were just reproductions. The originals were in the climate and humidity controlled building on the other side.

The most interesting thing about the palace were the "Nightingale floors". The floors in the palace were designed specifically to creak whenever someone walks on them. The idea was to ninja-proof the floors, keep assassins away.

Next stop was across town to Heian Jingu shrine. Just seemed like a geographically convenient shrine, although there were other more famous places to go. After only a tiny bit of wandering outside of the train station, I found the right way to go. Pretty easy once I spotted this.

Biggest torii I've ever seen. Usually, these are made of wood or stone, but I guess that a wood one this size isn't earthquake proof, so they used steel. I followed the road, and they had the last remnants of the new year party at the temple, so that's where I grabbed some lunch. I tried takoyaki for the first time. It's pretty similar to okonomiyaki, but in balls, with a nice chunk of octopus inside. I took mine across the street to watch some kid playing baseball, on Jan 5, in front of the big ass torii.

After watching an inning and touring the shrine, it was time to go back to the hotel to pick up my stuff and head towards the station. Plan was to shove my stuff in a coin locker and look at the tourist stuff near the station so that I could make a run for my train when the time came.

Last temple I had time to go to in Kyoto was Toji. Famous for having the tallest pagoda in Japan. I really liked it, but all the cool stuff was in "No Picture" zones, so no pictures. It was the first pagoda I saw where you were allowed inside, at least on the first floor. It was really pretty small and crowded with statues. They also don't want too much light to fade the statues, so it was dark, too. There was a temple employee inside who would occasionally shine a flashlight on some of the statues, but you really couldn't see anything.

On my way back to the station, I had just enough time to go into one of the subtemples of Toji. I was glad I made time for it, because it was my favorite temple of the whole trip. It was small and quiet and you could go anywhere you wanted, for the most part. I liked that it was just open and there were no people there. Very peaceful.

Unfortunately, I had to run from there to get to my train. For the first time ever, my shinkansen was delayed. Only 5 minutes, but it was strange. And, over the course of the 2 1/2 hours to Tokyo, somehow they made up the time. Got home around 10 that night, and I was so beat I did nothing all day Sunday.

Well, that's it for Kyoto. Hopefully I painted a pretty picture, because I wouldn't mind going back. If anyone wants to come and check it out, I kind of know my way around now, so it should go more smoothly.