Kyoto

Today we traveled to Kyoto. It was about 2 hours to get there via the bullet train.   I was expecting for it to be bright and sunny when we arrived but it was definitely quite the opposite.  It was raining!  This was quite disappointing because we had to walk quite a bit.  We visited a castle there called Nijo.   It was built as the Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa Shoguns.  We first went on a tour through the Ninomaru Palace.  It was very interesting to see the different rooms that the Lords stayed in.   The floors were also squeaky.  They were called "nightingale floors." This was done as a way to protect the occupants from sneak attacks and assassins.  There were also several beautiful gardens there.  I found this to be the thing that I liked the most.   There was a small waterfall in one of the gardens that I thought was amazing.   When entering the castle there was a moat surrounding it. This was my first time seeing an actual moat.  After we left the castle we headed back to a hostel we were staying in just for the night.   The hostel was very modern, especially the common areas.