We were all packed and ready to head off on another big day of adventure. Our drive took us from huge city of Nagoya to the even larger city of Kyoto. Kyoto is a UNESCO heritage listed city due to the incredible history of the city which was once the capital of Japan. There are many ancient buildings in the area, and it is also the main part of Japan where young women are still being trained in the art of being a Geisha. This seems to be a dying art with only about 1,000 geishas left in Japan. On the drive our guide, Henry decided to try to explain some of the history of Japan …..starting 14000 BC just after the ice-age. I think an hour into to this history talk he had lost most of us! Anyway, we did learn some other random facts like the first generation of the Toyota company used to make sewing machines but when the honoured Emperor (mentioned in the blog on day two) was in power, he sent the Toyota executives to Europe to learn how to modernise their company and that is when Toyota started to work on building cars! Our first stop was a wonderful visit to the Golden Temple. It was very busy (just for you Pat!) with many busloads of tourists and school children visiting the venue. Rob and I have certainly noticed the increased number of tourists now visiting Japan compared with our last visit here in 2010. (I’m not entirely sure the everyday Japanese people like it too much.) Anyway being a near perfect day, the Golden Temple did not disappoint, gleaming with its gold leaf over the mirror-like pond. I did learn a new fact that this temple is actually a replica because the original temple was burnt down by a novice monk in 1950. The story behind this is sad and worth looking up too, if you are interested. From here we were taken to the amazing Bamboo Forest. The forest was once a Bamboo farm. The government decided to purchase it, beautify it and build lovely paths all around it. It was a quite magical and peaceful place to wander around in. The wind picked up while we were in the forest and we were lucky to hear the calming noise as tall bamboo poles clunked together. Following lunch we were taken to Fushimi Inari-taisha, to experience walking through some of the torii gates. Again, this proved to be a very popular tourist destination, but it was stunning. We probably managed to walk through a few hundred of the thousands of vermillion torii gates that wind their way up the mountain near the Shrine. The gates are beautiful and of varying sizes. The have been donated by either corporations or private individuals. Once we were back on the coach we drove to the city of Osaka. We are here for two nights and have a much larger hotel room that includes a small kitchenette and a washing machine. It was a beautiful night, and our guide took us on a short walk to a lovely street full of restaurants. We found a little eatery and enjoyed a meal with Trudy, Rob and another lovely couple we have met on the trip. I must say that for a larger group than we are used to, everyone seems to get-a-long very well. Everyone is punctual and turns up when and where they are meant to so that makes things very easy for our guide.
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