rkold | Wait, there's more~~ (Reply)

On Monday,

becroberts headed back to Tokyo and I left to visit

yanchamonkey I left my bags at

yanchamonkey's apartment and grabbed my ruined suitcase to go to Kansai International Airport to try to deal with United. I played "Let's Make a Deal" and ended up just paying for the airport bus since it was way easier than trying to get back from the airport via train.

Tuesday, I took the day off and was lazy. It was really nice. XD;;

Wednesday was back on the touring schedule again. I had thought about going some places farther afield, but decided against it and instead went to Uji. While most foreign tourists might not know Uji, they usually recognize Byodo-in as it is the temple on the back of the 10 yen coin.

Since I took JR, I didn't need to cross any of the bridges to get to Byodo-in

I want to say this is a gardenia from what I remember of Houston

This is the place where all the tourists stand and get Byodo-in in the background lol It was extremely crowded and I had to wait quite a bit.

I paid an additional fee to get to do a guided tour of the Phoenix Hall itself. You can't take pictures inside, but there is a famous wooden Buddha as well as lots of floating Buddhas on clouds that are pretty awesome

I also thought the construction was pretty awesome

Pretty view of some of the gardens

A koi!

I really liked this angle lol

This is the side they don't let tourists walk in

I don't know why but I like this picture

From the back side. This whole area use to be one huge temple complex and now it's only like a 1/4 to 1/3 of its original size.

One of the phoenix on the roof. They had one of the originals on display in the museum.

I imagine during momiji season this area is packed!

As you can see it was pretty crowded the day I was there too. lol

The grave of I want to say the Fujiwara who spent the money to make this hall/temple possible back around 1150

Uji's a pretty sleepy suburb of Kyoto/Osaka which makes it lovely to visit.

I took the train back to Kyoto to go to the konpeito store and to this vegetarian restaurant I really wanted to try. Unfortunately, while I thought it would be faster to take a Keihan line, I was probably wrong. Uji is on this tiny off shoot of the Keihan line, so you need to first take a train to the main station where you then switch to get to Kyoto. By the time I got to the restaurant it was 2:45 and the last call for lunch was 2:30. ;;_;; Then the konpeito place was closed! Depressed, I decided to walk back towards Kyoto station, as I was meeting

chocolate_chip for dinner. I was hoping to find like a Starbucks or someplace I could get a snack. But sadly, I saw no place. I was becoming seriously depressed and sad (I mean I wasn't even passing combinis!) when I discovered the Very Berry Cafe. Not only did they have real American style cookies, amazing looking milk shakes but they had make your own bagel or toast sandwiches with options that were vegetarian!!! I ended up with a lovely cheese, tomato, and avocado sandwich, some delicious coffee and a cookie. The cafe had a Hawiian theme and was adorable. The waitress spoke some of the best English I've encountered as well. ^_^;;