Kyoto part 3(of 3) + final musings

Uhhuh. I so have left this for too long. Sorry about that.

Anyway. After two days in Kyoto and having walked more than I have ever walked in such a time frame my feet hurt and legs were stiff(getting up from Futon in morning was interesting exercise to begin with!).

Something to mention about the Ryokan I was in that it actually had small garden inside the building with bridge going over it and all. Nice touch. Probably was rather expensive addition seeing how pricey simply space is in Japanese buildings...So dedicating even this small area to garden was probably quite an investment.

 Also some nice paintings there.

 After eating breakfast and checking out of the Ryokan paying the bill I headed for one more thing in Kyoto. I wasn't feeling like walking that much so cut down plans a bit and headed sooner than expected to home(though as it turns out timing wise it was okay decision as it is. It takes time to go from Kyoto to Tokyo, Shinkansen or not!). So I went for the famous(though according to the French person overhyped. He prefers the silver one and I actually agree on that part) golden temple. So taking a bus I got to the temple pretty easily. I should have used bus day before for sure!

Above pictures were taken as I approached the place where the temple would be.

 And here's the temple. That's real honest to god gold plating over the temple. Not paint but (thin) layers of gold. Wonder how pricey that much gold would be? Must be some good security here even if this is in Japan! (and certainly tourists can't get within touchin distance of the building. Nevermind the first floor is not gold plated).

 Temple was surrounded by this big lake. Nice position for sure.

 And that's the thing on top of the temple.

 That lake is REALLY nice addition. Perfect location for the temple.

 There was path going around the temple with for example this little waterfall in there.

With this it was time to head back to the station. Finding correct bus took bit more work but eventually found it and then it was easy trip to Tokyo. I had bit of time for Shinkansen so spent it investigating Shinkansen timechart to compare "stop at every station" Shinkansen and Hikari shinkansen. Turns out eventhough slower one left sooner it would have been about 40 minutes later in Tokyo so wanting to get to home as soon as possible I waited for the next Hikari.

And with this ends chronicle of my trip to Japan. 2 months in there and at the end I felt very "home-like" there. Last day before airplane was feeling more than melancholic and on the last day apart from annoyance of having to carry the luggage I felt sadness over having to leave this place. I could definitely have enjoyed staying there bit longer. Not forever as I would miss family(particularly little brothers and niece) eventually but 2 months still felt like too short of a time.

There's still one more thing for me to do related to the trip and that's to create photo book for myself for memories. Unfortunately I'm bad at selecting pictures and sorting them to good order so it's still in very much incomplete. Going to work over it on weekend hopefully.

And I'm definitely planning to revisit the country again. Luckily I'm soon starting new job so saving up money for the trip should be possible in a reasonable time frame! I'm hoping for 2014 but haven't decided on the season yet. Spring would be nice again to see the Sakura again(I miss them so much!) but would be nice to see another season and November was recommended to me by several Japanese.

November would also allow longer time to save up the money(do I have time to save up enough cash in 7 months? Salary won't be all that huge at least to begin with) but on the other hand it would be about 8 months more to wait! Argh! Decisions decisions. Well it's not something I have to decide any time soon. Around November-December I can look at how much I have saved(and current yen exchange rate) and do some estimations.

But for now this blog is over. Thanks for all the readers(even if comments were few! ;). Until mark 2 of this blog then!