Kyoto a former capital of Japan is full of Japanese traditional culture and very much the land of temples. There are something like 1600 Buddhist, over 400 shinto shrines and 17 Unesco world heritage sites. We had no ambition to see all but the first afternoon we stepped up to at least visit the must see spots as highlighted by lonely planet. First was a temple within the city. It's amazing how quiet and serene it is within the temple walls.
As you enter a temple there is a water pavilion "temizuya" with ladles. This is not for drinking but for purifying the body and spirit before standing in front of the deity - apparently in the olden days you stripped down and washed off but in the modern day this has been reduced to washing one's hand and mouth. I love the dragon statues...
Shrines of both temples were full of gold and intricate lattice work. For one of the temples we were in time for a service. We sat for about 20 minutes of the service, nothing was familiar but it was interesting.
Even the lighting was fascinating!
I was surprised that the temple within a city was so huge, but ha I guess the city was built around the temple not the other way around.
I don't really know why this was in a temple, but it was cute...
After walking a few hours we went to the lower level of a nearby department store to grab dinner. After looking around we set on Okonomyaki - a japanese pancake full of whatever you'd like. We sat at the "bar" which is the grill in this case.
I chose the seafood option which came stuffed with noodles, topped with seafood and bonita flakes. After making it in front of us, the chef served it to us right on the grill.
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