My brothers and I went to Kyoto by ourselves with goals that were probably a little too big considering how we only had one day. The adults visited two places in Western Kyoto the day before, neither of which we got to visit ourselves, but we did get to see four places, so it wasn't a complete loss in my opinion!

The day was very bright and sunny, and it was actually pretty hot, so I regretted bringing my jacket a little. We rode the Keihan Line to Kyoto then purchased a One Day Bus Pass for an unlimited bus ride within the fixed fare area for the whole day. The buses passes by main tourist spots, the newer ones having English audio announcements onboard. The older buses may not have English audio announcements for all stops, but the screens do show the names in English and have English audio announcements for places of interests.

The first stop was Nijo Castle. Photographs are not allowed to be taken inside the building, which was a shame, but you can take as many as you want at the gardens and they were pretty enough to make up for it.

The next was Kinkaku-ji. I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but it definitely wasn't the temple actually shining in the light of the sun. The photo taking spot was small and it was very crowded by the time we got there.

My brother got dai-kichi.

The sun was already setting by the time we arrived in Kiyomizu-dera. I'm glad that we still caught some light, though the darkness caught up with us pretty quickly and the place was already about to close on our way out.

A university/hospital of some sort we passed by while on the bus to Kiyomizu-dera.

The way to Kiyomizu-dera is an uphill battle.

An ema is a small wooden plaque on which prayers and wishes are written. They are hung in Japanese shrines and may bear a variety of pictures. Some people actually draw on them!

Our last stop was Fushimi Inari! The station on the Keihan Line is actually pretty interesting, with all the fox decorations and such. You really know that you got off at the right station.



Maybe we should have gone to Fushimi Inari first before anything else, but then we might have had to miss Kiyomizu-dera if we did. We figured since it was open 24/7, we could save it for last. It was a bad idea! The place is super creepy at night, one could barely see in the dark, and taking pictures ended up in failure. So we decided to try again after we return from Tokyo. I'll be writing about it and the Osaka Castle on a separate entry!

We tried to take Kyoto in one day and we obviously didn't succeed on that. Kyoto is definitely a place you should take time in! Still, it was a fairly satisfactory day and we had a good time.