On Saturday, 23 March I grabbed the bus from Ishinomaki to Sendai, and from there a bus to Kyoto. Eleven hours later, just before seven in the morning, we arrived. I was fortunate that my friend, Rochelle, had been able to get the same bus, and even more so that the lady originally sitting next to me offered to switch seats with Rochelle so we could sit next to each other. Rochelle ended up sleeping for most of the ride, but we started out talking, so it was nice. The bummer was, at eleven, the driver had completely shut off all the lights, leaving me with only my iPod for entertainment (I had been reading at the time).
The first thing we did when we arrived in Kyoto was to find our hostel and drop off our bags. We were not allowed to check in until after three, but they did allow us to leave our bags with them. Once that was complete, we headed out to the city. Basically, we wandered until we came across a garden, sadly closed, and then found a temple. Higashi Honganji, to be exact. It is Kyoto's largest wooden structure. We spent about an hour exploring the grounds and the museum attached to the temple. Once we had our fill, we headed back over to the garden, which had opened at nine.
Shoseien, the garden, was gorgeous. I personally could have spent all day there. At one point I found myself alone with a crane--it was looking for sticks to build a nest--and at that moment I really wished I had Tati and her camera there, or (probably more accurately) that I had a better camera. The shots I took came out blurry. The garden itself was incredibly peaceful, and had some cherry blossoms. There were very few people in the garden as well, which also made it very nice.
After a little over an hour, we headed to Kyoto station to meet Nikki. The three of us then walked in the opposite direction of our hostel and found a shrine and another temple. Around one, we all decided we were hungry and started to slowly make our way back to where we could find food.
Nikki's friend, Clarissa, met us at the restaurant and we enjoyed lunch together. Afterwards, we headed to a nearby park, which also happened to house an aquarium, which we decided to check out. It was a lot of fun. We even saw a dolphin show.
Clarissa and Nikki had driven down in Clarissa's car, so we headed over to where it had been parked so we could move it close to the hostel. The sun had set by the time we made it back to the hostel, and so we checked in, got settled in our rooms--Nikki, Clarissa and I were in a six bed dormitory and Rochelle was in another dormitory on a different floor-- and then headed to the little cafe next door. We spent a few hours there just talking and relaxing.
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