temples and palaces entry 15

 

Today was a very new kind of day. Most of it consisted of riding a train to Kyoto, which was actually pretty cool. We woke up at 7:00 got some food and then met with Dr.V in front of the hostel we followed him to the correct train station and got on the 3^rd fastest commercial train in the world. We started out and got up to 180 miles per hour. This acceleration was very smooth, so smooth you didn’t even really feel it. The train ride out to Kyoto was truly beautiful, there were mountains everywhere all covered in greenery it was like driving through a dream, and then we drove by the one the only Mt. Fuji. This was truly a sight to behold it was like a towering giant among the plains of Japan. I can’t recall ever seeing a mountain quite that high before. Truly a once in a lifetime sight, pictures can’t really capture the sheer majesty of the wonder that is Mt. Fuji.

After a very pretty scenic train rides we finally arrived in Kyoto. This is a city that I was most excited about seeing because of all the traditional wonders as well as the new form of the city. We walked around a bit and found ourselves a palace, which was way cool. There were so many beautiful gardens and rivers running around it and various statues commemorating certain things about the palaces history. The inside of the palace was huge and was equipped with nightingale floors, which were designed to prevent ninjas from killing people after sneaking up on them. Every step I took the floor would make I high-pitched squeaking sound, it was a really cool thing to see.

After the palace we went to our hostel and got settled in, after we got everything squared away we went to a huge shrine area at the top of a mountain, after walking through a crazy graveyard. We could see pretty much the entire city of Kyoto. After that we went back to the hostel and grabbed a bite in the café. After that we did something that will probably be one of my favorite memories of this trip, a few friends and I went up on the roof and stared at the moon a sky for a while, we had a lot of good conversations and just had a really good time it is something that I have wanted to do for a while now. All in all one of the best days in Japan so far.