May 6th. Turning Gold into Diamonds

 The crowds have left and now all you have is crowds of foreigners. Well I will take that. Just small crowds. 

We started today at the saihoji moss garden which is a UNESCO site with limited access. We started copying Buddhist Sutras with meditation. Then went out into the moss garden. What an experience. It was so nice,I stopped taking photos. But here are a couple. 

 

A butterfly below. 

Another butterfly 

We are next headed to one of the private imperial palaces. Jessica manages to get us a taxi by phone that takes us down to the train station and then we go into Kyoto. 

We

Are early, so I find this 1950’s era place to eat. Good tempura. 

Cool huh. 

Then on to the palace where we are meeting Michael, Jenna, and Meghan coming from Fushimi iniri. The temple with all the orange tori’s. They make it just in time. Some photos from there. 

All are hungry, so we are meeting in Gion. We meet and decide on Ramen. It was delicious and reasonable. 

We walk to Gion looking for the street Bob Kowalczyk had taken me to some years back. Did not find it,

But many others just as nice. 

And that is a long day for this old man so good night. Tomorrow we travel to Miyajima.