Thursday 17 May 2012

Kyoto highlights

Last in the current series of blogs from anagram cities, here's the highlights from the beautiful Kyoto.

Kyoto is a bit more laid back than Tokyo. We arrived on Tuesday evening to discover that the annual Aoi (hollyhock) parade had been delayed by a day because of rain. Lucky for us or we'd have missed it!

It's the slowest parade I've ever seen and could take a few speed hints from the Orange walk. It's a bit more refined though, dating back to the 6th century.

This ox seemed to be struggling already with 5 hours still to go.




Luckily a sub was on the bench!




Here's a girl from the parade in full make-up.




After this we headed over to the Shogun's palace, Nijo-jo. The palace itself was fascinating but the best part was being suddenly surrounded by Japanese schoolchildren on an English assignment.




After answering loads if questions (their English was excellent), we posed for photos and were give a little origami thank you gift.




I'd love to see English kids attempt the same thing with a Japanese tourist in London!

That was yesterday. Today we explored the east of Kyoto which has numerous temples, gardens and winding streets. It's exactly how you'd imagine Kyoto to be.







You'll even see a few Kyoto girls in full traditional dress wandering around.




It's a fantastic place.

Check the photo link on the right hand side for more pictures.

Also check back over the next few days for highlights of Fuji, Matsumoto and the Magome to Tsumago trail.

Location:Kyoto,Japan

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