Day 20 (S)

Myra and I made a second excursion into Kyoto while Ani and the rest of our classmates attended the school festival at Shitennoji.

Myra and I are getting to be very proud of our success in navigating the trains to get places. We had to take the train to three different places today, and not once did we get lost! We even made it back in time to catch a bus!

Our first stop was Byodoin, which is depicted on the back of the 10 円 coin. See:

It was raining when we got there, and since all of Saturday we carried around umbrellas without it actually raining, we had taken the umbrellas out of our bags. It was ok at first, then it turned into a waterfall and we were soaked. Luckily for us, we were able to shelter at this museum until it stopped raining. It had some English signs too.

(pictures of the some of the famous 52 Bodhisattva)

Then we went to Tofukuji, which was pretty, but boring:

Then we debated about going to Kurama-dera, but were too tired, so we went back to the shopping area near Kiyomizudera and bought souvenirs. 

We saw what we think were either maiko or geisha:

Then, lugging a bunch of bags with us, we went to Kyoto station, which is gigantic and huge. It was fun, though probably would have been more fun if we weren’t tired and carrying bags. 

Long day, but pretty successful.