Central Kyoto

Yesterday was a magical day in central Kyoto.

Leaving our house to arriving at the central train station took about 50 minutes and cost about £5 - it's so convenient to travel to Kyoto from Osaka.

Disappointingly, central Kyoto did not live up to my expectations. It is not very beautiful and feels like any built up city. We were walking around all day on main roads and saw a number of Starbucks and Mcdonald's. However, the sites we saw were incredibly stunning and our visit to Arashiyama (click here to view) in Western Kyoto was beautiful. It appears to me that to see the beauty of Kyoto you must explore further!

Anyway, another beautiful yellow tree outside a temple. We visited Nishi Hongwanji which is an incredible Buddhist temple, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Inside the hall's was beautiful: huge empty rooms with sliding doors and tatami mats provides a peaceful surrounding for prayer.

There were also beautiful screens and ornate gold decorations around the halls.

The decoration on this lamp in particular was stunning: see the intricate display of birds and leaves.

Amazingly, these cute kids were visiting on a school trip from Fukuoka. They saw us, and started conversing with us in English. They then gave us 'peace cards' that they had made - spreading their love of Japan and their message of peace to everyone! It was so sweet and we have the messages to keep. 

Then we moved on to the gardens of the Imperial Palace. We were unable to see the palace buildings as you have to book entry with a tour group, but we had an amazing time strolling around the park and admiring the beautiful trees.

I loved this one: part of the tree is trying to maintain its greenness whilst the rest is turning red!

We had fun throwing leaves at each other...

And we had a really magical moment by this incredible yellow tree. Delicately, leaves started falling from the tree towards the floor and were floating all around us. It was as if it were snowing leaves, and it felt great to be witnessing nature at work. We sat down and took in the moment. I tried to make a video but it couldn't really capture the moment.

Finally... to fulfil our appetites after a long day of walking we got these adorable Snoopy donuts at the station! Snoopy is a big deal in Japan for some reason - everyone loves him!

I still can't believe the beauty of the trees in Japan! The weather is lovely here. Even though it is now December and heading through to winter, it is still really sunny and pretty nice weather. It's getting cold but is nowhere near as cold as in England.