The main leg of our trip involved the temple Regeoin Sanjudangendo.
The gardens were beautiful.[slideshow!]
We found a stunning bell, which is still rung twice a day to commemorate the 1200th birthday of the first temple opening on Mt Hiei.
I wanted to take a photo where it looks like I was ringing it... I think I needed more height!
When we actually got around to entering the temple, we had to take our shoes off, and stow away all camera equipment. The photos would slowly damage the statues.
It was amazing, and something unique to see. We were slightly in awe, even as non-buddist (or hindu as there seems an over laps in legends)
We brought a book explaining the statues so here are some photos from that:
Each statue has been handcrafted by a sculpture artists - about 50 of the designers have been identified so far! Some did more than one statue, but there are many left unclaimed from that time.
We wondered into Kyoto from here, and found the Gion district - home to tea houses and Geiko (Geisha)
So many interesting alleys and shops!
Women wearing Kimono everywhere (we thought this unusual until we saw the Kimono for hire shops).
Tucked away restaurants and shrines everywhere
Richshaws! Apparently invented in 1869 in Japan - and still out in force.
We saw a wedding, it was really beautiful, I wish I could have captured more of it, but this was from quite a distance and we didn't want to intrude too much (although they were in the street at this point posing for photos!)
More Kimonos - this was too pretty!
We found another temple with roller barrels outside. Everyone was doing this so we did too:
To be continued...