We had some time to wait for the next part of the tour, so we walked up the street to see some near by Shinto Shrines. I thought it was cool to see the family worship areas. It was beautiful with the old tombs an the cherry blossoms.
We are now on our way to see Heian-Jingu Shrine. It has a giant Torii gate located across from a beautiful public park. There were several people dressed in kimono. It is so neat to see them carry out ancient tradition. The temple didn't seem all too unique. It was pretty and a great experience. But the best part was the garden. Once we rounded the corner an walked in it appeared as if there was pink blossom snow on the ground. It was beautiful. I could have looked at that court yard all day. Then we stepped further into the garden and all around the pond were cherry blossom trees, in full bloom. This was what we were looking for, just breath taking. Interesting fact, Lost in Translation and Memoirs of a Geisha both had scenes filmed here.
Once it was time to leave we couldn't find Mike. He had gotten separated from the group. This tour guide was very stressed about time and making it too the next place. Mike made it, I am not sure what this lady was so worried about. We had 3 busses in front of us before we could move.
Next we went to Sanjusangen-do. An ancient temple with 1000 life sized Buddhas. It was impressive to see so many Buddhas all with different clothing and different facial expressions. We could not take photos here, so I don't have any. Just know they were bronze and gold and there were lots of them.
We all took the opportunity to go the bathroom at this place. It was less crowded at this place. Our tour guide never took bathroom breaks. Mike and Laurie took a bathroom and then a wrong turn. And whoops they were on of last to get on the bus. The tour guide came back to talk to two couples to remind them what time we had to be back on the bus to leave. She warned us the bus will leave at 5:45pm.
Next we went to Kiyomizu temple. We had to park at the bottom and walk up a crowded hill. Just getting to the parking lot took more than 30 mins. It was so crowded. As we are walking up the hill, our tour guide is practically running. We had the hardest time dodging people to follow her up the hill. We get to the top where the gate is. She sprints off to get us tickets. Then once we have a ticket we were free to to what we wanted. We quickly went through the temple. It was neat, very pretty and picturesque, but we all would have rather shopped the street below. So after about 5 mins in the temple, we headed back down.
Bill wanted shot glasses to add to his collection. Shot glasses are mystical souvenirs hardly ever found in Asia. I pride myself on locating a wide variety of shot glasses in one of the first stores. So he bought two to make up for the other times we have visited mainland and couldn't find a shot glass.
Next we weaves in and out of stores. We found this awesome mobile to hang above the baby's bed. But they wanted $300+ for it. We thought that was too expensive. So we were on the hunt for a less expensive, yet just a cold version. We found a store near the parking with separate pieces. I can put them all together to make the mobile. By the time we made our choices, we had one min to check out and make it to the bus. We were going to be late. I left Bill to check out and headed to the Bus. As I walk out the door, guess who I see running down the hill, Mike and Laurie. We get to the bus area and can't find our tour guide, I was worried they had left us. I saw her walking through a group of busses trying to leave. She showed us where to go. As I got on the bus, I was happy to see we were not the last ones to get on.
Bill and Mike came running up shortly after I had sat down. Bill had our purchases in his hand. I was so glad to see him. It then took us almost an hr to get out of the parking lot, down a narrow road and on to a major road. That last place was very, very busy.
We made it back to the New Miyako Hotel, where we had met up with the tour in the morning. We rejoined our First Lady guide and headed to catch a train. This tour guide was so funny, she was a short heavy Japanese woman, she walked with her head down and like a charging Bull. She raced up the escalator and through the crowded subway/train terminal. Our group of 5 (the Morrison's plus a Canadian) did all we could do to keep up. She waited for no one. We got to the ticket machine and she asked where our tickets were. We all stared blankly at one another. Well around 9 this morning someone had handed Laurie an envelope of subway tickets, Laurie and I were the only ones who knew about them. And we had forgotten about them. Finally it clicked, at this point I am sure the charging bull tour guide thought we were complete dummies. We find the tickets and rush some more to see a train just as it is pulling away. We had to wait 15 mins to catch the next rapid service train back to Osaka. The train ride was uneventful, we learned a lot about our Canadian counterpart, but other than that we arrived at the sub way station. The charging Bull once again headed us a breakneck speed to catch the subway. We bought our tickets and felt like we were on the home stretch. The guide never gained confidence with us, she found us on the subway to notify us when it was our stop. We graciously thanked her and exited. It was a fun and interesting day. And we all felt success because we arrived safely at our hotel in one piece all together.
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